Chapter 42
The door slammed, and I think it shattered a piece of my heart with it. The sound of rattled wood echoed in the room, like it was erasing everything that had come before.
I stayed frozen, hands clenched tightly in my lap, eyes fixed on a spot on the floor that wasn’t really there.
His words echoed louder than the door — You’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted to take home to my mother.
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to.
But a shadow lurked beneath that hope — the ghost of every time Joel looked through me like I was invisible, like I was nothing more than a placeholder.
How do you believe you’re worth something more, when your history has been built on being unwanted?
The fight — my denial — was supposed to be armor, but it only tore us both open.
There was a part of me, a strong, visceral, part, that wanted to reach out to him, even though he had just left. To apologize — lie? — and tell him we were okay.
That everything between us was going to be okay.
But there was another part of me, and that part… it felt smaller, but it hit me like a train.
That part was so fucking scared. Scared of being seen.
Scared of opening up to him.
Scared of being so hurt again.
I knew that running into Ansel the same week I had officially signed my papers was kismet.
I knew that him showing up to my bookstore months later was destiny.
But what am I supposed to do with these acts of fate, when the Fates had left me battered, bruised, and bleeding so recently?
I couldn’t look him in the eye, see the deep blue of his gaze, the greys in his sandy hair, and the wrinkles that scrunched up when he smiled… and just forget.
Better this way.
The voice in my head was insistent.
I hadn’t even really meant it… It was instinct to throw that wall up. To put up a barrier that kept everyone at arm’s length. Especially now.
Somewhere between the stupid texts, falling asleep in his arms, and pretending to be his girlfriend… Ansel had turned into the most important person in my life.
And I fucked that up.
Just by being me.
Joel would be so proud of me right now. A soft knock at the door startled me.
“Miss Haddock?” The driver’s voice, muffled through the wood. “Mr. Barlowe sent for you. Your flight leaves in two hours.”
I swallowed hard, throat tight. My fingers fumbled as I packed my things — if you could even call it packing. Just shoving clothes into my bag like it mattered, like it would keep me from falling apart.
It wouldn’t.
The car ride was quiet. The driver offered small talk, and I smiled politely, gave the shortest answers possible. My mind stayed fixed on the way Ansel’s hand had trembled on the door handle. The way he’d looked back at me like — like maybe I’d stop him.
I hadn’t.
The airport felt like a blur of fluorescent lights and mechanical voices. Gate 47. Boarding Group A. First class again, even without him.
Worse without him.
I sank into the too-large seat by the window, knuckles white around my boarding pass. I tried so hard not to think about the last flight… about his hands and his lips and his mouth…
I was crying before we even left the ground.
Because it wasn’t just the physical. It had never been just physical. He had been kind. Observant. A man I’d want to take home to meet my parents.
“Fuck,” my voice stuttered, heart racing as the plane pulled away from the gate. “Fuck,” I had been dreading the flight home, even with him next to me. But I had taken a little solace in the fact that he could read me like a book, and just… comfort me.
But not this time.
This time, I just stared out at the tarmac, crying. Alone.
Stupid.
The days blurred together after that.
I threw myself into work because it was the only thing that didn’t feel hollow. Sorting shipments, making displays, ringing up customers, talking about new releases — it was all mechanical. Easy. Predictable.
But every quiet moment felt like it stretched on forever.
I’d catch myself glancing at my phone, heart lurching every time it buzzed — only to find it was a text from Raymond, or a spam email, or a shipping notification for a book I’d forgotten I preordered.
Not him.
Never him.
I’d even starting lurching at the sound of the bell, tinkling as someone entered the store. Was it him? Would he come back?
At night, I’d lie in bed with my laptop open, halfheartedly scrolling through our fake-dating photos online. The comments underneath them still made my cheeks burn — people fawning over how perfect we looked, how in love we seemed.
They didn’t know that the smiles in those pictures had stopped being fake somewhere along the way.
Sometimes I’d laugh at a memory — something stupid he’d said, the way he’d tease me just to see me roll my eyes — and then I’d cry, because even thinking about him hurt now.
And then there were the moments that I wanted to text him so badly. Tell him some stupid take or theory I’d seen online about ‘Battle for the Cosmos’ or tell him I’d ordered another Eryk Moonstrider t-shirt.
I was coming apart at the seams.
Raymond noticed.
“You’re quiet,” he said one night as we closed up the shop together.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re lying,” he replied, giving me a look I didn’t have the energy to argue with.
But I didn’t explain. I couldn’t.
Because how do you say I ruined the only thing that made me feel alive again without sounding pathetic?
By the time the second week rolled around, I’d almost gotten used to the ache. It was just there now, a dull throb beneath my ribs.
Raymond dropped a box on the counter in front of me, startling me from my thoughts. “Put this together for me?” he asked with a wink.
I didn’t have the energy to question his chipper mood. Slicing through the box, my stomach dropped.
Why the fuck was a cardboard Ansel Barlowe’s face staring back at me?
I found Ray standing several aisles over, cackling quietly to himself. He turned, “Thought it would be fun to have when he comes to the signing tonight.”
Shit.
Fuck.
Goddamn fuck.
I laughed awkwardly, placing a piece of paper over cardboard Barlowe’s face. “Am I closing by myself tonight?”
“Jazz will be here around 7 to help run the register for the event, but—” He shrugged, shelving books like he wasn’t setting my anxiety aflame with a flamethrower. “—mostly. We only had 25 RSVPs for the event tonight, and what with the talent being your beau, I figured we didn’t need more.”
I nodded, swallowing the knot that had formed in my throat.
Fuck.