Chapter Text
I’m in the Victory Stitch parking lot, sitting in my car. It doesn’t start.
Of course.
I smack the steering wheel like it’s an old TV, and somehow—miraculously—it works. The engine coughs, stutters, then gives in.
The night is warm and moonless. Not even a star pining through the clouds.
I park on the street, grab my overstuffed tote, and start up the stairs to my apartment. My legs burn halfway up.
I sigh.
It really never gets any easier.
The stairwell yawns open in front of me, concrete and echoing, a vertical tunnel of footsteps and old dust. The building is massive in that unromantic way—thick walls, narrow windows, designed to endure rather than impress. It smells faintly of damp stone and whatever someone cooked three floors up.
Every sound multiplies here. My boots slap against the stone and come back to me louder, as if someone else is following just a half-beat behind. Somewhere above, a toilet flushes. Somewhere below, a door slams. The building hums with other lives stacked on top of each other.
By the time I reach my floor, I’m running on spite.
The second the door clicks shut behind me, my clothes hit the floor. I turn on the shower and stand there, waiting for the water to warm.
I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
No hot water.
Great.
I give up and collapse onto my bed, face down, arms limp, like gravity finally won.
From here, I can see it.
A single cyan guitar pick, wedged between my nightstand and the bed frame.
Luca’s.
My chest tightens, sharp and familiar. I hate that even though I cut him off months ago, he still exists in fragments.
Evidence.
I should’ve known better than to give him a second chance. When he was younger, he was sweet—disarmingly so. Mature in a way boys sometimes never grow past. I let him go when he went on tour with his rock star father. Didn’t want to be the thing that held him back.
When he came back—and I was fresh off Eren, lonely and reckless—it didn’t feel like the worst idea.
It was.
I get up, grab the pick, and walk it seven feet straight to the garbage disposal. I drop it in and flip the switch.
“Fucker,” I mutter.
The last time I saw him was at the clinic.
My period was late. I told him we should buy another test because I couldn’t tell if the line was positive or not. Instead, he drove us straight in for a blood test. He wore a stupid disguise—hat pulled low, sunglasses indoors—and insisted we go through the back, like we were having some illicit affair.
But neither of us wanted this anywhere near the news, so fine. Through the back.
The hour we waited in that tiny room stretched into something unbearable. A slow-motion panic with white walls. At first, he was ecstatic. Talking about fatherhood like it was a shiny new project. A rebrand.
I shut that down immediately. Motherhood was not happening.
So he pivoted. Suggested giving the baby away to his sister and her wife, like it was nothing. Like I was an incubator with a scheduling conflict.
I remember staring at the wall, tracing a crack with my eyes, wondering how I’d ever mistaken him for someone who loved me.
Thankfully, I wasn’t pregnant. I left with a shiny new IUD and about 180 lbs less dead weight.
He stayed behind, flirting with the nurses, making them sign NDAs. Playing songs on his guitar... Smiling like nothing had happened.
By the time he returned to my apartment, I’d shoved all his shit into a black garbage bag and kicked it down the stairwell.
I watched it tumble, fast and loud, all the way down the twisting staircase.
All twelve floors.
Fucker.
The pick long gone, I flip off the garbage disposal and shuffle into the bathroom. I smack the boiler with the side of my hand.
It rattles.
Then—hot water.
Huh.
I let the steam fill the tiny room. My shoulders finally drop. My reflection in the mirror looks tired. Worn. Still standing.
I step under the water and let it burn, just a little.
Some things break easily.
Some things just need a good hit to start working again.
I’m not sure which one I am yet.