Chapter Sixteen
Present Day
I fell asleep, wrapped in Theo’s arms.
I woke up only a couple of hours later, the room was in darkness and eerily quiet. I reached out for Theo, but he wasn’t there.
“Theo?”
I called his name, but nothing returned. Confused, I sat up and turned on the lamp light. He wasn’t in the room and the bathroom light was off.
I picked up my phone and almost sent him a message, but then frowned and realised that we weren’t together, that I didn’t have the right to ask him where he was. Still the cold fear of him not being in the room caused my heart to speed up anyway.
“Fuck.” I said under my breath and to myself. I got out of bed and walked over to the table where my laptop still sat. I opened it and the document I’d been writing.
I need to go back to therapy
Hindsight is 20/20
I stopped writing the list and opened a new document.
Some say that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
I can’t say I agree with that statement.
I’ve always tried to appreciate what I have, because one day you might wake up to everything you know gone, or changed so irrevocably that the world shifts on its axis.
Knowing what you have, but asking for what you want…
That’s something I just cannot do.
I want to fall in love, but my heart is so guarded by loss - I’m too scared to ask for someone else’s.
I saved the document and closed it. Writing had always been my safe place, but I’d struggled for so long. I knew why of course, it always happened when I was emotionally stilted. I walked back to the bed and climbed in, this time picking my phone up and sending Theo a quick message.
Imogen - You okay?
I waited a few minutes for him to respond, but he didn’t. So I forced myself to lie back down and eventually I fell asleep.
When I woke I was confused. The door beeped and opened quietly.
“Yes, I can be in Milan on Friday.” Theo’s voice was slightly slurred.
It was still dark, so I knew it had probably only been an hour or so since I’d last been awake.
“No, no other plans. Two weeks?”
Theo paused and then sat down on the bed, his weight shifting the mattress slightly. “I can do two weeks.”
My stomach dropped. We’d had an amazing couple of days and of course I’d known it was coming.
But the sound of it, out loud in the dark, was still a physical blow.
I kept my breathing even, my eyes shut tight.
Playing possum. If I was asleep, this wasn’t real.
If I was asleep, he wouldn’t have to explain, and I wouldn’t have to hear the lie that this—whatever this was—had ever mattered more than his real life.
“Yeah, send the details through. I’ll confirm flights in the morning.” A rustle of fabric. The soft thunk of his phone on the nightstand. Then silence.
He didn’t get back under the covers. He just sat there on the edge of the bed. I could feel the heat of him, could smell the faint scent of hotel soap and him. It was all still there, clinging to my skin, warming the sheets where he’d been. But he was already gone.
My chest ached with a familiar, hollow throb. *Hindsight is 20/20,* my own words mocked me from the laptop screen. I didn’t need hindsight. I had fucking night-vision. I saw this coming from the moment he smiled at me in the truck.
I thought he might say something. A sigh, a mutter, anything. But he just sat there, a silent monument to my own stupidity. Eventually, the mattress shifted again. He stood up. I heard the faint click of the mini-bar fridge, the hiss of a cap twisting off. Liquid poured into a glass.
I couldn’t do it anymore. The pretending was choking me.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
My voice sounded rough, too awake. So much for the act.
I heard him inhale sharply. “Shit. Sorry, Gin. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.” I rolled over, propping myself up on an elbow. The dim light from the courtyard painted him in silver and shadow by the window, a glass of some kind of liquor in his hand. He looked… tired. Beautiful and untouchable. “Milan, huh?”
He took a long drink. “Yeah. A last-minute job. Big campaign.”
“Friday.” It wasn’t a question.
“Friday,” he confirmed. His eyes found mine in the gloom. “The wedding’s Thursday. I’d planned to leave on Sunday anyway.”
I’d planned. Not we’d planned. Because there was no we in his plans. Even though he’s been my ride here, I had to find my own way back. It was clear now I wasn’t factored in. I never had been. The silence stretched, thick enough to taste.
“Two weeks is a long time,” I said, my tone carefully flat. “Lots of… opportunities.”
He winced, just a tiny tightening around his eyes. “It’s work, Gin.”
“I know.” And I did. That was the worst part. I knew it was work, and I knew what his work looked like. I’d seen the photos. All long limbs and sharp cheekbones and effortless beauty. The opposite of round. The opposite of me.
I wanted to ask, What does this mean? What are we? The questions burned like acid on my tongue. But asking felt like begging. And I’d promised myself a long time ago, after Christopher, after Thomas, that I would never again beg a man to make me a priority.
So I swallowed the acid. I gave him the out, because it was easier than watching him take it later. “Well. Sounds important. Congratulations.”
“Gin…” He took a step toward the bed, but I was already lying back down, turning my back to him, pulling the covers up to my chin like armor.
“I’m happy for you, really, I’m just tired.”
The lie hung in the air between us. He didn’t call me on it. After a minute, I heard him set the glass down. The bed dipped as he finally slid in. He didn’t reach for me. The space between our bodies, which had felt so thrillingly small just hours ago, now felt like a canyon.
I stared at the crack of light under the door until my eyes stung. My brain, that treacherous bastard, started writing another list.
Things That Were Always Temporary:
Summer camp.
The tankini from Mom.
Theo Bennett’s attention.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The pillow wall was back. Figuratively at least and this time, we’d both built it.
March 2023 – The Break-up
The March wind was a knife, sharp and mean, slicing right through my threadbare sweater. I didn’t feel it. Not really. The cold inside me was deeper, a solid block of anger sitting where my stomach should be.
I set the cardboard box down on the porch with a quiet thud. It wasn’t heavy. A couple of hoodies, a spare phone charger, a novel he’d never finished, a toothbrush. The entire physical footprint of a two-year relationship, condensed into 12 cubic inches.
Three days. That’s how long it had taken since the dinner. Since he’d looked up from his phone, his gaze skating over me like I was a mildly interesting painting, and said, “You know, sometimes I think I’m settling, but then I remember how hard it is out there for girls like you.”
The words hadn’t landed with a crash. They’d seeped in, slow and toxic, turning everything in my system to ice.
I’d packed his things with a terrifying calm. No tears, no slamming drawers. Just a quiet, surgical removal. Now, here they were on the faded welcome mat. The final joke.
My fingers were numb, but they moved. I pulled my phone from my pocket, the case cold against my skin.
My thumbs tapped the screen, deliberate and sure.
Your things are on the porch. Do not call me. Do not come inside. We are done.
I hit send. I didn’t block him. I needed to see it. I needed the proof.
The response was almost instant.
What the hell, Imogen? Over a joke? You’re being hysterical.
Another buzz, violent in my palm.
You’re really going to do this? You won’t find better.
Then, the last, perfect twist of the blade:
You’re going to regret this.
I stared at the screen, the blue light washing over the cardboard box. The wind whipped my hair across my face. He was giving me my own deepest fear, wrapped up as a threat. You are lacking. You will be alone.
A strange, silent stillness settled over me. It wasn’t peace. It was the absolute clarity of a scorched field.
I tapped the screen again
The only thing I regret is the time I wasted thinking I had to be grateful for scraps.
Send.
Then I blocked him. Number, socials, email. A total severance.
I turned and walked back inside. The lock clicked behind me, a sound more final than any sigh. I put the kettle on. Made tea. My hands didn’t shake.
That night, in the quiet of my apartment that suddenly felt like mine again, I opened my diary. I uncapped the silver pen and ran my thumb over the word “believe.”
I would rather be alone than be someone’s consolation prize, I wrote, the ink flowing dark and sure.