Chapter 7 Blowup
BLOWUP
WHERE I GET CALLED OUT ON EVERYTHING I’VE BEEN AVOIDING.
Ididn’t sleep.
Two days. It had been two days since the almost-kiss, since Greg and his mix tape, since Marcus had said “Goodnight, Diane” in a voice that meant goodbye. Two days of chaos—exes appearing in my apartment, Todd showing up to be dismissed, my magic spiraling out of control.
Two days of silence from Marcus.
Last night, after Cassie left, I’d finally picked up my phone. Stared at his name. Typed and deleted and typed again.
I’m sorry about Greg.
Can we talk?
Please.
I meant what I said. I was going to kiss you.
No response. I’d watched my phone for hours, waiting for the three dots that would show he was reading them. Nothing. Just silence, stretching through the night like a confirmation of everything I’d feared.
By 6 AM, I gave up on sleep entirely. Made coffee. Tiptoed past Ryan, who had claimed my couch and was snoring softly. Navigated around Derek and Greg. Fed Tequila, who watched me with knowing eyes.
You’re going to see him.
“He won’t answer my texts. I sent four last night. Nothing.”
So you’re going in person.
“This isn’t a conversation for texting anyway.” I stared at my coffee. “I need him to see my face when I say it. Hear my voice. Know that I mean it.”
Mean what?
“That I want to try. That the interruption wasn’t me running.”
Tequila’s tail swished. And if he doesn’t believe you?
“Then at least I’ll know I tried.”
The walk to Marcus’s shop felt like walking to my own execution.
My phone buzzed the entire way—6,912 matches, 6,934, 6,958—but I barely noticed. I was too busy rehearsing what I was going to say, how I was going to make him understand that I wasn’t running this time.
I want to try. The interruption wasn’t me leaving. I was going to kiss you, and I still want to.
Simple. Direct. True.
Except nothing felt simple anymore. Not after a sleepless night. Not after watching my texts go unanswered. Not after seeing the way he’d shut down, closed off, retreated behind walls I didn’t know how to climb.
The morning was grey and cold, the kind of fall weather that made everything feel more serious than it probably was.
The streets were quiet—too early for most of the shops to be open, too late for the morning rush.
Just me and my buzzing phone and the growing certainty that I was about to make everything worse.
The shop came into view.
It was dark.
Not just closed-for-the-morning dark. Dark dark. Blinds drawn, no lights in the back room, the kind of dark that said go away more clearly than any sign could.
I knocked anyway.
Nothing.
I knocked again, harder. “Marcus? I know you’re in there. I can see your truck around the corner.”
Silence. Then footsteps, slow and reluctant, and the door opened a crack. Marcus stood in the gap, not stepping aside, not inviting me in. Just blocking.
“Diane.”
“Can I come in?”
“I’m not open.”
“I know. I’m not here to shop.” I tried to see past him into the dark shop. “I’m here to talk. About yesterday.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just looked at me with those unreadable eyes, and for the first time since I’d burst into this shop fleeing my possessed phone, I felt like a stranger.
“The radio’s been quiet,” he said finally. “Since you left. Whatever connection was there—I think it’s fading.”
“That’s not—”
“It’s probably for the best.” He shifted slightly, hand on the door frame. Ready to close it. “You have a lot going on. A lot of options.”
The word landed like a slap.
“I’m not here about options. I’m here about you.”
“Am I not an option?” His voice was flat, careful. “Another match on your phone. Another possibility to consider. Another door to keep open in case something better comes along.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” He met my eyes, and there was something there I hadn’t seen before—hurt, maybe.
Or resignation. “You come here for quiet. For escape. When your phone gets too loud and your life gets too chaotic, you show up at my shop and sit in my chair and drink my tea. And then you leave. Back to the chaos. Back to the options.”
“I almost kissed you.”
“Almost.” The word was bitter. “We almost kissed. And then your phone screamed and a man in a leisure suit appeared with a mix tape, and you left. Again.”
“I didn’t have a choice—”
“You had a choice. You could have stayed. You could have told Greg to go away. You could have come back, after.” His jaw tightened. “But you didn’t. You went home. And I spent the night alone, wondering if any of it meant anything, or if I was just another quiet place for you to hide.”
“Marcus—”
“I can’t do this.” He stepped back, hand on the door. “I can’t be your maybe. Your possibly. Your ‘let me think about it while I entertain five thousand other options.’”
“I’m not—”
“You ARE.” His voice cracked, and suddenly the careful composure was gone.
“That’s what you DO, Diane. You keep everything open.
You never close a door. You’ve told me yourself—forty-seven first dates, five second dates, zero follow-through.
You’re terrified of choosing wrong, so you choose nothing. And I can’t—”
He stopped. Took a breath. Ran a hand through his hair in a gesture I’d seen a hundred times in the shop—frustration, exhaustion, the weight of something too heavy to carry.
“Do you know what it was like? This past week?” He wasn’t looking at me anymore.
He was looking at the space over my shoulder, at nothing.
“Having you here every day. Watching you relax. Watching you laugh at my terrible jokes about Victorian hair jewelry. Watching you curl up in that chair like you belonged there.”
“Marcus—”
“I started to hope.” The words came out rough, almost angry. “I told myself not to. I told myself you were just here for the quiet, that you’d leave eventually, that I shouldn’t let myself feel anything. But you kept coming back. You kept making me laugh. You kept looking at me like—”
He stopped. Swallowed.
“Like maybe I wasn’t just a place to hide. Like maybe you actually saw me.”
“I DO see you—”
“Then why did you leave?” His eyes met mine, and the pain in them made my chest ache. “After Greg showed up. After the moment broke. You just… left. You didn’t come back. You didn’t fight for it. Two days of nothing, and then four texts last night like that was supposed to fix it.”
“I had chaos—exes showing up, Todd appearing at my door—”
“And I had silence.” His voice cracked. “Two days of wondering if any of it meant anything. Two days of convincing myself I’d been an idiot for hoping. And then your texts came and I thought—” He stopped. Shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I thought.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Because he was right. I had left. I had gone home. I had sent texts instead of coming back, instead of banging on the door, instead of fighting for what I wanted.
Because fighting felt too scary. Because what if I fought and still lost?
“Because I’m scared,” I finally said. “Because the last time I chose someone, I chose wrong. Because I spent five years making myself smaller and smaller for a man who still told me I wasn’t enough. Because I don’t trust my own judgment anymore.”
“That’s not an answer. That’s an excuse.”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s BOTH.” He stepped closer, and I could see it now—the anger underneath the hurt, the frustration underneath the grief. “You’re scared. Fine. Everyone’s scared. I’m TERRIFIED. But that’s not a reason to refuse to choose. That’s a reason to choose CAREFULLY. To pick someone worth the risk.”
“What if I pick wrong again?”
“What if you never pick at all?” His voice was relentless. “What if you spend the rest of your life spinning plates, keeping options open, never committing to anything because you’re too scared of getting hurt? Is that better? Is that the life you want?”
“No—”
“Then stop LIVING it.” He was close now, close enough that I could see the grey in his hair, the lines around his eyes, the slight tremor in his hands. “Stop hiding behind fear. Stop treating every person who cares about you like an option instead of a choice. Stop running.”
“I don’t know how.”
The words came out small. Broken. And something in his expression shifted—the anger draining away, leaving only exhaustion.
“I know.” His voice was quieter now. “I know you don’t know how. And I wish I could teach you. I wish I could wait while you figured it out.” He shook his head slowly. “But I can’t. I’ve already lost one person I loved. I can’t spend my life waiting for someone who might never choose me back.”
He stopped. Took a breath. When he spoke again, his voice was steady, but I could hear the grief underneath.
“I watched my wife die.”
The words hung in the air.
“I loved her more than I knew it was possible to love someone. And then I watched her disappear an inch at a time. Six months of doctors saying there was nothing more they could do. Six months of holding her hand while she got smaller and smaller.” His eyes were wet, but his voice was steady.
“At the end, I promised myself I would never love anyone like that again. Because I couldn’t survive losing someone like that twice. ”
“I’m not asking you to—”
“You’re not asking me ANYTHING. That’s the problem.” He stepped closer, suddenly intense. “You come here for quiet. You almost kiss me. You run back to your chaos. You never actually CHOOSE. And I can’t—I WON’T—let myself care about someone who doesn’t know if she wants me.”
“I DO want—”
“Do you? Or do you just want the quiet? The escape? The man who makes your phone stop buzzing?” His voice sharpened. “Because that’s not the same thing, Diane. Wanting what I can do for you isn’t the same as wanting ME.”
The words hit like a physical blow.
Because he was right.