Chapter 105
Chapter One Hundred Five
Kit
I stare at the door.
“I just need to get the girl,” he said.
But which girl?
Me?
I don’t know if we’ll ever be in that place again. Or if we ever truly were.
He’s probably still chasing the memory of teenage Kit. The version of me who believed in bright beginnings and romantic promises sealed in the back of tour buses. The girl who thought music and sex and love could fix anything.
I’m not her anymore.
I’m the woman who’s carrying a mountain of baggage, a thousand what-ifs, and a heart that sometimes forgets how to beat without caution.
I have bruises in places no one can see, and forgiveness doesn’t come easy anymore.
Trust? That’s a whole damn battlefield. And sex—it hasn’t been just sex in a long time. Not since him.
Would I want to try again?
Would I even survive it?
I remember him standing in my father’s office just months ago saying he still belonged to me. Like I was his final note, the one that never resolved.
Even if I never wanted him again.
Then there was that kiss. Fuck.
That kiss.
I touch my lips, the phantom press of his mouth still lingering like a song stuck on repeat.
The kiss was a collision of past and present, of everything we lost and everything we’re still scared to want.
I almost begged him right there—to fuck me, to love me, to take every ounce of me like he used to.
To remind me that we weren’t broken, just interrupted.
But I didn’t, and a lot has happened since then.
And then there’s DeadStrings.
The man who lives inside my inbox and my headphones. The man who makes me laugh when I don’t even want to smile. Who sends me songs that say more than any words we could exchange. He gets me—not through explanations or questions, but through instinct. Through something that feels . . . inevitable.
It’s easy with him. Effortless. No masks, no past between us. Just this quiet pull that began with a lyric and grew into late-night confessions. Something that feels like it’s always been waiting.
He makes it easy to feel wanted without being possessed. Seen without being judged. And that’s something you don’t throw away just because the man you thought was your forever suddenly wants another shot.
If those promises were ever about me—and not just the idea of me.
What if getting the girl had a different meaning?
Roderick could’ve met someone else. Someone who doesn’t flinch when old songs play or overthink kisses. Maybe he realized I’m not his. Maybe that look in his eyes isn’t longing—it’s closure.
I hate this. This doubt. This quiet ache I can’t soothe.
It’s not about my worth. I know who I am.
But I don’t know who he is anymore.
And I don’t know if I’m falling for a memory in boots and tattoos . . . or the anonymous soul who messages me from the dark corners of the internet with songs that feel like they were written for us.
Can I even be in love with a man I haven’t seen? Haven’t touched? Haven’t kissed?
God, what if I already am?