Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
My phone sat face-up on the nightstand. I stared at it like it might blink first. No new messages. I told myself that was normal. It was five-oh-something in the morning. People slept. People didn’t wake up with their nerves already tight, waiting for a shoe to drop.
People like Char didn’t sleep. Not really. Not the way people were supposed to. I knew this because of the nights we had spent together.
I rolled onto my back and let the silence press down on me. For a second, I let my mind pull up her face from last night—her mouth curved around a laugh like she didn’t believe she deserved it. Her hand on my forearm when I said something stupid about a movie I hadn’t watched. The way she looked around the restaurant like she was mapping exits without meaning to.
The date had been good. Not easy. Not simple. But good in a way that made my chest feel too open, like I’d unbuttoned something I’d kept tight for years. The problem with good was that it tricked you into thinking you could have it. That you could keep it. That you could hold it steady without it turning into a liability.
I’d been divorced for long enough to know better. I sat up and rubbed my palm over my face, then swung my legs out of bed. The floor was cold. The world was cold. I welcomed it.
Cold was honest.
In the bathroom mirror, I looked like every other cop who’d seen too much and slept too little—shadowed jaw, short hair that never had a chance to grow too long, eyes that didn’t soften even when I tried. I brushed my teeth, stared at the man staring back, and thought about the fact that he’d asked a woman out after meeting her with a swollen cheek, busted lip, and bruised ribs.
That wasn’t normal either. My phone buzzed once, and my pulse answered like a gunshot. I snatched it up.
Char: Morning. I didn’t wake you, did I?
A breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding left my lungs in one slow spill.
Me: No. I’m up. You okay?
The three letters sat there on the screen like they’d been written in someone else’s hands. You okay. It was what I said to witnesses, victims, and rookies. It was what you said when you didn’t know how to ask the real question.
Are you safe? Do you still feel him on you? Do you think he’ll come back?
Char: Yeah. Just had a weird dream. But I’m okay. What’s your plan for the day?
My day. What a loaded question. One that people get to talk about regularly. My life, though, it’s anything but ordinary. I was walking into a building full of radios and reports before getting in a patrol car as a man who lived on adrenaline.
Me: Heading in. You working today?
Char: I’m off. Might try to tackle the laundry mountain. And maybe go for a walk if it’s not freezing.
A walk. Something ordinary. Something small and brave. I typed and deleted twice before I settled on honesty that didn’t sound like a warning.
Me: Text me later. I’ll check in when I can.
Char: Okay. Be safe.
I stared at those two words until the screen dimmed. Be safe. People said it like it was a blessing. Like safety was a thing you could choose. Noone really had control. We could do the best to manage variables, like being aware, but safety wasn’t something someone could say they had real control over. Life was unpredictable and the world seemed to get crazier every day.
I put the phone down gently, like I might break it, and finished getting ready.
The drive to the precinct was quiet, the sky slowly opening from black to gray. DC at that hour had a muted edge to it—monuments half-hidden, streets damp with last night’s cold, the city holding its breath before it filled with horns and hurry.
My mind kept sliding toward Char, toward the way she’d looked at me when I walked her to her door last night. She’d stood in the hallway of her building with the new deadbolt she’d installed glinting on the inside of the door. She’d hugged herself like her arms were the only thing she trusted to hold her together.
“I had a good time,” she’d said softly, like she was testing the words to see if the universe would punish her for them.
“I did too,” I answered, and I meant it. That was the part that made me uneasy.
She hesitated, then stepped closer. Her fingers touched my sleeve, then my wrist, then lingered like she didn’t want to risk anything more.
“I don’t,” Her voice had cracked. She’d swallowed and tried again. “I don’t want you to think I’m broken.”
I’d held her gaze. “I don’t.” It hadn’t been a lie. It also hadn’t been the whole truth. Because broken wasn’t the word. Fragile, maybe. No, she wasn’t fragile, she was strong.