VOLUME I ACT I CHAPTER SEVEN Ashes and Embers (Part Two)
VOLUME I
ACT I
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ashes and Embers
(Part Two)
He took the couch. I offered the bedroom, but he shook his head with that quiet kind of finality that says, please don’t push me right now. I didn’t argue. I handed him a fresh blanket, folded it carefully on the arm of the couch, then turned away before I could register the way his shoulders sank when I did.
In the bedroom, I stood in front of the mirror longer than necessary. I looked like myself, but I didn’t feel like her. Something inside me had shifted, or maybe something had been pulled away. It wasn’t just guilt anymore. It was exposure. A piece of me had been laid bare, and I wasn’t sure what was left behind.
The bed felt colder. Wider. My arm kept drifting toward his side, only to find nothing but untouched sheets. I laid there in the dark, wide awake, listening to the muffled city hum through our windows and the occasional rustle of him shifting on the couch. Every noise made me want to get up and check on him, but I didn’t. I’d done enough pushing for one lifetime.
The next morning, he was gone.
A note sat on the kitchen counter, short and controlled:
“Went for a walk. I need to think. Don’t wait up.”
I stared at it for a long time, rereading the same three lines until they stopped making sense. There was nothing warm about it, no heart, no smiley face like he used to add. Just... a statement. A boundary.
I kept myself busy the rest of the day.
Not because the apartment was a mess, it wasn’t. But because I couldn’t sit still without feeling like I was going to come apart at the seams. I scrubbed the stove three times. Washed all the towels. Rearranged the bookshelves and folded clothes that didn’t need folding.
At one point, I found the hoodie he’d worn the night we moved in together, black, oversized, still faintly smelling like his cologne. I sat on the floor and held it against my face until my eyes burned.
The weight of what I’d done wasn’t just emotional, it was physical. Like a pressure on my chest that wouldn’t let up. I’d spent so long crafting this beautiful version of us. But now I was living in the aftermath of reality. And reality didn’t care how carefully I had drawn the edges of our love story.
He came home just as the sun was dipping behind the buildings.
I’d cooked, his favorite. Set the table. Lit a candle. Not to impress him, but because I needed a space where we could talk, or even sit, without pretending things were okay.
He paused at the door for a second when he saw the table.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” he said.
“I know,” I said softly. “I just… wanted something to feel normal.”
He sat down across from me. We started eating in silence. The kind of silence that crackled with unsaid words and unfinished questions.
Halfway through the meal, he said, “I talked to my mom.”
My fork paused mid-air.
“She’s... still processing,” he continued. “She doesn’t hate you. But she’s hurt.”
I nodded. “I don’t blame her.”
He exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath all day. “She said she always knew there was something more to you. Something too tailored. Too precise.”
“That’s fair.”
“She also said if anyone could work through this, it would be us.”
I looked up at him. “Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But I want to.”
We finished eating slowly. Every minute was a balancing act—trying to seem steady when inside I was nothing but sharp angles and unraveling threads.
Later that night, we ended up on the balcony. It had always been our place for deep talks and quiet laughs, but tonight it felt like neutral ground. He stood leaning against the railing, arms folded, while I curled into the corner of the loveseat with my knees pulled to my chest.
“You know what bothers me the most?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head.
“You made all the first moves. Every moment that felt spontaneous to me… wasn’t. It was part of a path you’d already mapped out.”
“I didn’t manipulate you,” I said, too quickly. “At least not... not in the way that sounds.”
He turned to face me. “But don’t you see? That’s what makes it worse. I fell in love with someone who already knew all the right things to say. Who knew what I liked before I said it. Who showed up with answers before I even had questions.”
I swallowed hard. “I never pretended to be someone I wasn’t.”
“No,” he agreed. “But you edited yourself. You were the version of you you thought I would love.”
“That version is still me.”
“Is it?”
The silence that followed felt like it would split the sky.
After a while, he sat down beside me. Not close. Not touching. Just present.
“Do you regret it?” he asked.
I took a breath. “I regret not trusting that I would’ve been enough without the plan. I regret not giving you a real choice.”
He nodded, slowly. “I don’t regret loving you. But I’m mourning the version of our story I thought we had.”
We sat there for a long time, watching the city below move on without us.
Before bed, he handed me his phone. “Here.”
I blinked. “What’s this?”
“My Instagram. My messages. My photos. Everything. You already knew me once, without my permission. Now I want you to know who I am now—fully. Without hiding.”
I hesitated. “Why are you giving me this?”
“Because maybe it’s the only way I’ll know if I still want to be seen.”
I looked down at the unlocked screen.
There were photos I hadn’t seen. Notes to himself. Unsent messages. Things even I hadn’t found when I was digging all those years ago.
I didn’t open anything. I handed it back.
“I don’t want to study you anymore. I just want to be with you.”
For the first time in days, he smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes, but it tried.
“I don’t know what happens next,” he said.
“Then let’s not decide tonight.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
We went to bed in separate rooms again.
But the door stayed open.
