Chapter 2 Stassi
STASSI
Itell myself to breathe, but my chest doesn't listen.
I've been sitting on this bench for ninety-seven minutes, counting each second like it's my job.
There's not a cloud in the sky, but my anxiety won't allow the sun to warm me. All I can feel is the cool slats going through my jeans and I tap my right foot. I can't keep still, but I'm trying.
I hunch forward, elbows on my knees, hands clasped so tight my palms are sweaty. Across the narrow cobblestone street, through the windows of his favorite restaurant in Athens, I see him.
It's been four years since my eyes have taken him in.
He hasn't changed and I can't seem to look away.
His jawline seems sharper now, the angles of his face more defined than I remember. Still wearing perfectly tailored black suits like it’s his second skin. Still commanding attention. Even now the man he's talking to hasn't blinked.
A waiter refills his wine. Red, always red.
Some things never change.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Shit. I shouldn't have come.
I shift on the bench, my legs going numb. My hands won't stop trembling no matter how tightly I lace my fingers together.
What am I even doing here?
It's only been forty-eight hours since my entire world shifted. I haven't even processed it, not really. It still doesn't feel real.
But somehow, here I am.
Every step that's led to this feels like a mistake.
Booking the flight from Los Angeles under a fake name, landing in Athens, shaking through customs with nothing but a beat-up duffel and my heart rattling against my ribs.
The cheap hotel reeking of pine cleaner and cigarette smoke.
The Uber ride with a driver who kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror like he thought I was going to have a heart attack.
Four years of running, of looking over my shoulder, of building walls so high that even I can't see over them sometimes, and now I'm sitting sixty feet from the man I left behind.
A woman approaches his table, leaning in too close. Is she his? Does he look at her the way he used to look at me? I have no right to care, but the jealousy stirs anyway.
You left him, I remind myself. You don't get to feel this way.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the crumpled piece of paper. I smooth it against my thigh.
The note is short, but the words feel like razors every time I read it. I wrote it shortly after taking off because I didn't want to think about it.
I need your help.
Stassi
310-555-1234
Pathetic.
He won't help me. He shouldn't.
I should just turn around. Go back to the hotel. Figure something else out. There's always something else. There has to be.
Except, I know that's a lie, or I wouldn't be here.
I glance back at the window.
Theo nods as the man he's talking to gets up and leaves.
This is it. I need to do it now before he comes out because I can’t face him today. I'm not ready just yet.
I push up from the bench, knees wobbling.
Theo’s car is parked around the corner. I spotted it the second I got here. It's a sleek black muscle car he’s had for years. As a matter of fact, I was with him the day he got it.
I wait for a car to pass so I can cross the street. They slow so I walk out only to have them honk at me. I hurry across and glance up in the window, scared Theo will be staring at me, but he's not. He's talking to that woman again and signing the check.
I have to hurry.
I walk briskly to his car and pull the note from my pocket. I press it against the glass and a gust of wind comes.
Dammit.
It falls to the ground and I scramble to pick it up, dropping to one knee and stretching under the side of the car, desperately reaching for it.
Once I get it, I pop back up, lift his windshield wiper, and tuck it under, letting go to pin it in place.
The edges flap in the breeze, but it won't go anywhere now.
Done, done, done.
Looking at his car, for a second, I swear I feel his presence—smell his cologne, feel his gaze on me. It hits me so hard I almost stumble.
My heart is hammering in my chest and my mind is spinning a hundred miles a second that I don't even hear the footsteps until it’s too late.
Shit.