VOLUME I ACT I CHAPTER TEN Shattered Reflections (Part One)
VOLUME I
ACT I
CHAPTER TEN
Shattered Reflections
(Part One)
I didn’t know what to expect after Kieran left the note by the coffee maker.
For three days, he didn’t come by, didn’t call, didn’t text. I spent every hour dissecting the meaning behind his words. Healing is a process, not a performance. It echoed in my head, a constant reminder that he hadn’t walked away—not completely.
But he hadn’t walked back in, either.
By Friday, I was restless. The apartment felt too still, too clean, too staged—like a showroom of a life paused. I baked muffins I didn’t eat. I reorganized the bookshelves. I even called my mom for the first time in two months.
“You sound distracted,” she said.
“I am.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Is it about a boy?”
I let out a humorless laugh. “It’s about the boy.”
More silence. Then, “Don’t break yourself trying to fix something that was built on a crack, sweetheart.”
But that’s the thing, I hadn’t just built something on a crack. I’d carved out the entire blueprint.
That evening, I got a text.
Kieran: Dinner? My place. 7.
I stared at it for a full minute before replying.
Me: Yes.
When I arrived, his apartment smelled like roasted garlic and something buttery. Candlelight flickered from the kitchen counter. Music played low in the background, something jazzy and slow.
He looked up from the stove and gave me a half-smile. “Hey.”
“Hi,” I said, slipping off my coat.
He looked tired but clean-shaven, like he had tried. For me. For us.
We sat down to eat, some kind of lemon butter pasta with grilled vegetables. It was quiet at first. Not uncomfortable, just careful.
Halfway through, he set down his fork. “I went through your journal.”
My chest tightened.
“You left it on the coffee table,” he added quickly, as if to justify it. “I wasn’t snooping. But once I opened it… I couldn’t stop.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“You wrote about everything. The first time you saw me. The plans. The lies.” He paused. “But also the guilt. The dreams. The moments you wanted to confess but didn’t.”
“I didn’t mean to trap you,” I said softly.
He studied me. “You didn’t. Not really. But you shaped things. Tilted the odds. You bent fate to your will.”
I swallowed. “Would you have loved me if I hadn’t?”
He leaned back, eyes distant. “I don’t know. That’s what scares me.”
Silence settled between us like fog.
After a while, he spoke again. “You know what bothers me most?”
I braced myself. “What?”
He looked directly at me. “That you didn’t think I was capable of choosing you. That you thought you had to orchestrate your way into my life instead of just showing up.”
Tears welled in my eyes.
“You don’t need to be perfect for me to love you,” he said. “You just need to be real.”
I reached across the table and took his hand. “I’m trying. I really am.”
He squeezed my fingers, then let go.
“Let’s take a walk,” he said.
The night air was cool, brushing against our skin as we strolled down the quiet residential street. Trees whispered above us. Our footsteps were the only rhythm in a silent song neither of us knew how to finish.
We walked in silence for a while, the distance between our hands feeling like a chasm I didn’t know how to close. I wanted to reach for him. But I didn’t know if I had the right anymore.
“I used to fantasize about this,” I finally said. “Walking beside you like this. Being part of your world.”
Kieran let out a slow breath. “You already were. You just didn’t let me know it.”
That truth cut sharper than most.
“I never expected things to turn out exactly like this,” I said. “I just wanted to be near you. And then it snowballed.”
“That’s the part I believe most,” he said. “Because when I think about it, I remember how sincere you were. Every time. Even when it felt too easy—you made it feel easy to love you.”
I stopped walking.
“Do you still love me?” I asked.
He turned to face me.
“I think love never really leaves,” he said. “It just changes shapes. Sometimes it turns into grief. Sometimes anger. But sometimes... sometimes it waits.”
I felt the tears I’d been holding back spill quietly down my cheeks.
He reached up and wiped one away. “I don’t know what this is yet. But I haven’t stopped wanting to find out.”
For the first time in weeks, I let out a genuine breath. One that didn’t carry the weight of lies or silence.
“Then let’s keep walking,” I said.
So we did. Past lamplight and parked cars, past old fears and unspoken things. We walked into the dark not as who we had been, but as two people still learning what it meant to start again.
And maybe that was enough.
