Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 92646 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92646 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
She listens. Makes occasional noises of sympathy. Doesn’t interrupt.
When I finally stop talking, she exhales. “Okay, so to clarify…you went to look at the apartment because you don’t want to fall in love with him, and then you dry-humped him on a bed in the model unit?”
“That sounds accurate,” I mutter.
“Poppy,” she says gently. “You already fell. You’re just trying to move out before you have to admit it.”
I swallow hard. “I know I should. Move out. We’ve crossed lines. It’s complicated. It’s messy. We started sleeping together before either of us even talked about what we wanted. And now I don’t even know what I want anymore.”
My throat tightens.
“Look,” Nova says, “if you need space—real space—to figure it out, move. But if you’re just running because you’re scared he might actually feel the same way and it’ll ruin everything... then girl, you’re not escaping. You’re delaying the inevitable.”
“Which is what?”
Nova doesn’t miss a beat. “You’re in love with him.”
I blink at the ceiling like it might offer an escape hatch. “I am not—”
“Poppy.”
“No, I—”
“Poppy.”
I flop onto my side, defeated. “How would that be possible?”
I do the mental math, unsure how many days it’s been. Confused.
Nova snorts. “You think love follows a timeline? Like there’s a minimum-waiting period before your feelings are allowed to count?”
I roll onto my back again, staring at the ceiling fan that’s doing a halfhearted spin. “I didn’t plan this.”
“No one plans this,” she says. “That’s literally what makes it real. If you could plan it, it’d be a Pinterest board, not a relationship. And need I remind you how my relationship got started? It was a mess.”
It was. Her relationship with Luca Babineaux began with a lie. Lots of them. A secret relationship, sneaking around.
It should’ve crashed and burned but it didn’t.
Once she stopped lying to herself and to her brother it became one of the truest, purest forms of love I’ve ever seen.
I press a hand to my stomach like I’m trying to quiet the butterflies or suppress an incoming emotional breakdown—jury’s out on which.
“Nova?”
“Yeah?”
“What if I stay and he doesn’t feel the same way?”
She’s silent for a beat. Then says, “Then you’ll know. And you’ll survive. But if you leave without telling him how you feel you’ll never stop wondering.”
Of course—she’s right.
Still.
That does nothing to stop my stomach from twisting in knots and my fight or flight instincts from kicking in.
“I wish he’d just say something. Spell it out. Give me a sign or write it on the wall or tattoo it on his forehead.”
Nova snorts. “Yeah, but that’s not how this works. You’re both stubborn idiots who flirt like middle schoolers and avoid real feelings like they’re contagious.”
I laugh. “God, you make it sound so off-putting.”
“Just do it.”
I’m not sure if I can, so I do not make her any promises.
turner
. . .
Three weeks later
Three weeks.
That’s how long it’s been since I’ve heard her voice echo down the hallway, since her stupid fuzzy slippers slapped against the hardwood, or her laugh floated from the kitchen while she burned her eggs.
Three weeks since she moved out.
I wasn’t even home when she left.
Out of town for a game. One night, one hotel, one too-long bus ride back, and when I walked into the house, her room was empty.
Gone.
No warning. No note.
How fucked up is that?
I thought we were friends.
Scratch that—I thought we were more.
I thought every time she looked at me like I was hers, it meant something. She stole my hoodies. Left her shampoo in my shower because she liked my shower better. And had wanted to paint her walls beige.
Now her room is empty.
Nugget keeps whining at the front door. And every time I walk past the kitchen, I expect to hear her singing badly or yelling at the blender like it personally wronged her.
But it’s quiet.
And I’ve never hated silence so much in my life.
She is. Everywhere.
Her nail polish still stains the armrest of the couch from the night we drank too much and she painted her toes while we watched a horror movie. The freezer still has her weird oat milk popsicles. Nugget’s new favorite toy is the one she brought home the day before she moved out.
I flop onto my bed and instead of jerking off like I want to—because it’s been three weeks since we last had sex, I do what I should have done months ago: open the dating app with intention.
Time to get back in the saddle, for real this time.
I prop my phone on my chest and start swiping like a man trying to prove a point to absolutely no one.
“No.”
“Nope.”
Too filtered.
Esh—not filtered enough...
Girl holding a fish—cute. Very cute.
Another swipe.
Another.
Another.
And then—
I freeze.
There she is.
Online.
A little green dot glowing next to her name like a slap to the face. Active now. Swiping. Still looking.
I tap on her profile like an idiot, even though I’ve already seen it. Memorized it. Matched with it. That stupid bio I used to think was clever. That smile I’ve kissed. That face I used to wake up thinking about.