A different thought shoved in, quieter but meaner.
No, that’s not it.
The universe didn’t shove you. You did this part on your own.
You swung the hammer. It just watched.
My throat went tight. I pushed away from the counter and limped into the living room, dropped down onto the couch like my strings had been cut.
The leg hummed with that bone-deep ache that meant I’d overdone it. My stump burned where it met the socket, a raw reminder of plywood stairs and rough hands and the worst seconds of my year.
I could feel the spiral opening up under me, familiar as the grooves on my palm.
Clara, laughing with some faceless guy who didn’t have to think about where his foot landed.
Clara, planning shoots and hanging her name on a studio window while I sat here counting pills and pretending jobsites didn’t scare the shit out of me.
Clara, with a partner who didn’t need a contingency plan every time they left the house.
I dug my fingers into my thighs, nails biting through denim, like I could anchor myself to the present.
The house felt smaller by the second. The air heavier. Every corner held some ghost of her—a mug on the counter, a blanket tossed over the arm of the couch, a sticky note on the fridge with her loopy handwriting telling me to buy more coffee.
Sitting here was just letting the tide pull me under.
I lurched up too fast. The socket protested, a sharp jab up my thigh, and I grunted, catching myself on the back of the couch. The edges of my vision went gray.
Then I focused on the key bowl by the door.
My hand moved before my brain could talk me out of it. Keys jingled in my fist, cool metal biting my palm.
From the outside, it probably looked like I was doing something reasonable. Going after her. Trying to fix what I’d broken.
I wasn’t that noble.
I just knew if I stayed in this house one more minute, surrounded by the shape of her without the reality, I was going to crawl back into every old version of myself she’d spent weeks trying to drag me out of.
I yanked the door open, stepped into the cold, and let it close behind me.
I didn’t point the truck toward Kit’s place.
My hands were already turning the wheel toward the one person who’d been there for the first wreckage and might—if I didn’t screw it up—help me figure out what the hell to do with the second.
I sat therewith my hands on the wheel, staring at the familiar front steps, the dent in the railing we’d put there moving a couch in five years ago.
I could turn around. Go home. Crawl back into the pit I’d dug in my living room.
Instead, I killed the engine and hauled myself out of the truck.
The cold slapped my face awake. Gravel crunched under my boot as I limped up the path, leg a steady throb. My knuckles were stupidly tight when I knocked.
The door swung open a second later.
Hayes stood there in a faded Star Harbor hoodie and sweats, hair shoved back like he’d had his hands in it. His brows shot up when he registered it was me on his porch.
“Uh,” he said. “Hey.”
My throat felt like sandpaper. “I’m here to say I’m sorry,” I managed.