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The Morning After (Nothing)
The sunlight hitting my apartment floor felt like an insult. It was too bright, too cheerful for a woman who had just realized she was a ghost in her own life.
I sat on the edge of my bed, my thumbs hovering over my phone screen. It had been four hours since I’d crept out of Ethan’s penthouse, fleeing before he could wake up and see the wreckage of my dignity. I had expected a text by now. At least a ‘Where did you go? or a ‘Thank you for staying.’
Nothing.
I closed my eyes, and the memories of the last six years played like a highlight reel of my own stupidity. I saw us at twenty-two, meeting at that internship where he’d shared his sandwich with me because I’d forgotten my wallet. I saw the night he got his first big promotion, when he’d spun me around in the rain, laughing, and I was sure he was going to kiss me.
He hadn't. He’d just told me I was his "lucky charm."
Every "almost" moment, every late-night confession where he leaned on me, every birthday I’d spent helping him pick out gifts for other women, it all felt like lead in my stomach.
I couldn’t help it. I was a professional at hope. I typed out a quick message.
Maya: You okay?
I stared at the screen. One minute. Five. Twenty.
I threw the phone facedown on the duvet and went to the kitchen to make coffee I knew I wouldn't taste. I cleaned my already-clean counters. I folded laundry. I checked the screen every time a car passed outside.
Six hours later, the notification finally chirped. My heart did a pathetic, hopeful leap.
Ethan: Yeah, thanks for last night. You're a lifesaver! Followed by an high-five emoji.
I stared at the "high-five" emoji until my vision blurred. No "Are you free for dinner?" No "I'm sorry you saw me like that." Just a casual, digital pat on the back. I was a "lifesaver." I was the AAA of human beings, available for roadside assistance, but never invited to the party.
Something deep inside me, a tiny flame I’d been sheltering for half a decade, finally flickered and died.
The phone rang in my hand. It was Simone.
"Tell me he’s at your door with roses," she said, skipping the greeting. "Tell me he finally woke up and realized he’s been an idiot for six years."
"No," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to me. "He thanked me like I delivered his pizza, Simone. With an emoji."
There was a long, heavy silence on the other end. "Maya... honey. It’s time. It was time three years ago, but it’s really time now. Let go. You’re drowning in an inch of water for a man who doesn't even want to get his feet wet."
"I know," I whispered. "I think I finally know."
We hung up, and I sank onto my sofa, staring at the peeling paint on my ceiling. I felt like a hollowed-out shell. I was so lost in the silence of my own disappointment that when the knock came at the door, I jumped.
My heart spiked. Ethan? Had he realized the text was too cold? Had he come to apologize?
I didn't check the peephole. I swung the door open, a "Hey" already forming on my lips.
It died instantly.
Cade Blackwood stood in my hallway. He looked even more imposing in the daylight, black t-shirt stretching over broad shoulders, a leather jacket that had seen better days, and that scar on his cheek catching the hallway light. He was holding two cardboard coffee cups.
"Figured you could use this," he said, his voice that same low, grounding rumble from the morning. "After playing nurse all night."
I blinked, paralyzed by the sheer presence of him. "How... how did you know where I live?"
Cade tilted his head, his gray eyes tracking the subtle tremor in my hands. "I asked Ethan."
The "Face Slap" didn't come from Cade; it came from the implication. "And he just... told you?"
"Didn't even look up from his laptop," Cade said, a flicker of something, disgust? pity? crossing his features. "I told him I had some of your stuff. He gave me the address without even asking why I wanted to be the one to deliver it."
The sting was physical. Ethan had handed my personal address to a brother he hadn't seen in years, a man he barely spoke of, without a single protective instinct. I was so "safe" to Ethan that I wasn't even worth being jealous over.
"Can I come in?" Cade asked.
I should have said no. I should have told him to leave the coffee on the mat. But the air in my apartment felt stagnant, and Cade brought with him the scent of the outside world, and a dangerous kind of honesty I’d been starved for.
I stepped aside, my pulse thrumming in my ears.
Cade walked past me, his sheer size making my living room feel half its size. He didn't look at my decorations or my photos. He turned to face me as I clicked the door shut.
"You're crying," he noted. It wasn't a question.
"I'm not," I lied, wiping my eyes aggressively.
"You are. Over a man who is currently ordering brunch with his broker and has already forgotten the color of the dress you wore last night." He set the coffees down on my small dining table and stepped toward me. "The question is, Maya... how much more of your life are you willing to burn to keep him warm?"
I looked up at him, trapped between the door and his intense, silver-gray gaze.
"Why are you here, Cade? Truly."
He reached out, his thumb catching a stray tear before it could fall, his touch surprisingly warm and devastatingly firm.
"Because I like things that have value," he whispered, his eyes dropping to my lips for a heartbeat before locking back onto mine. "And I hate seeing them go to waste."
The silence in the room changed. It wasn't the empty silence of Ethan’s neglect anymore. It was the heavy, electric silence of a match being struck in a room full of gasoline.
The game hadn't just begun. The board had been flipped.
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