Chapter 13 Jamie
Carter Crane is the world’s biggest asshole. I mean I already knew that, but I had no idea of the extent of it until I spent a week with him.
He’s an arrogant, privileged dickhead of an asshole and I have three hours to stew on it during the drive back to the city.
I mean, he’s a pretty asshole, sure, but an asshole nonetheless. If this week has taught me anything, it’s that the Carter affair needs to stop. I don’t know how you break a prime match, but I’m going to need to work it out. I can’t keep doing this.
Yes, he’s gorgeous and yes, the sex is out of this world mind blowing, but that’s not enough to ruin my life for.
The anger carries me through the first hour.
I replay the argument in my head, refining my responses, thinking of all the things I should have said.
You want to play with the big boys. Who the fuck says that?
Who stands there defending a smear campaign while the person they've been screwing is telling them about dead rats in their mailbox?
Carter Crane III, apparently. Asshole.
By the second hour, I'm still running on caffeine and spite, but by the third hour, the anger has gone flat and I just feel a heaviness that feels like it has settled into my bones.
The adrenaline starts to fade, and exhaustion seeps in to replace it.
My body aches in ways I'm trying not to catalogue.
My thighs are sore. My hips are sore. There's a bite mark on my shoulder that throbs every time I shift in the driver's seat, and I can still feel the ghost of his hands on my skin, no matter how hard I try to think about something else.
I turn up the radio to drown out my own thoughts and focus on the road.
I make a decision as I drive. I’m done with the Cranes overall. It’s time for me to move on. I’m not going to accept any more speaking engagements about them. No more articles. As soon as I’m home, I’m going to check my contract and see if I can get out of the book deal.
I never want to hear the name Crane again in my life. I’ve never been big on social media anyway. I’ll delete all the apps and just ignore them until the mess dies down.
It’ll be good for me to focus on new stories anyway.
It's midday when I finally pull into my parking spot. I sit in the car for a long moment, hands still on the wheel, staring at the familiar brick of my apartment building.
Home. I'm home.
I grab my bag from the back seat and head upstairs.
Akari is on the couch when I come through the door, laptop balanced on her knees, some documentary playing on the TV. She looks up at the sound of my key in the lock, and her expression shifts immediately from casual greeting to sharp concern.
"Jesus, Jamie." She's on her feet, laptop abandoned. "What happened to you?"
I catch a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror and wince.
I look like I've been through a war. Dark circles under my eyes, skin pale beneath the lingering flush of heat recovery, and my collar has shifted to reveal the edge of a bruise on my neck.
There are more underneath my clothes. A map of the week is written on my body.
"Long story," I say.
"You look like death."
"Thanks."
"Sit down." She's already heading for the kitchen. "I’ll make you a cup of tea."
I don't argue. I drop my bag by the door and sink onto the couch, letting my head fall back against the cushions. Every muscle in my body seems to unclench at once, and the exhaustion hits me so hard I could cry.
Akari returns with two mugs. She hands me one. It’s deliciously warm between my hands. “Do you need a hug?”
I look at her and burst into tears. She scoots over on the couch and wraps her arms around me while I sob like a little girl.
“Wanna talk about it?”
My kneejerk response is to say no, but it’s followed close after by honesty. Yes, I do. I want to tell someone because my head is a mess and maybe she can help sort it out for me.
I tell her the cabin and the weird tenderness. And then I tell her about the argument.
"He said what?" Akari's voice has gone sharp. "That piece of shit."
"He also more or less admitted they're behind all the crap online." I take a sip of tea. It's cooled enough to drink properly now
"So it's done." I set down my mug with more force than necessary. "I'm done. No more Carter, no more Cranes, no more any of it. I need to move on."
Akari studies me for a long moment. "Okay. What's the plan?"
This is why I love her. She doesn't try to talk me out of it or tell me I'm being hasty. She just asks what I need.
"First, I need a new phone number." I pull out my phone and stare at the screen. There are no new messages, but that doesn't mean anything.
Carter might be giving me space, or he might be sulking, or maybe he’s still driving. "He can't have any way to reach me. If he can text me, I'll answer. I know myself well enough to know that."
"There's a phone shop that’s just opened two blocks up," Akari says. "We can go now if you want. Get you a new SIM card."
"Yeah." I stand up, and wince.
She rolls her eyes at me. “Sit. I’ll go.”
“Are you sure?”
"Course." She's already grabbing her jacket. "Same carrier?"
"Doesn't matter. Whatever's cheapest."
She heads for the door, then stops. "Jamie. Are you okay? Really?"
I consider the question. My body hurts. My chest feels hollow.
"I will be," I say. "Once this is done."
She nods and leaves.
While she's gone, I take a shower and try not to think about the beautiful bathtub with its view of the trees and mountains.
I dry off and pull on clean clothes and pad back out to the living room. I make myself a sandwich while I wait for Akari to get back and eat it mechanically, barely tasting it, but my stomach settles.
She returns twenty minutes later with a small paper bag. "New SIM," she says, tossing it to me. "I already activated it. Your new number's on the card."
"Thanks." I sit down at the kitchen table and pull out my phone.
The process is simple. Pop out the old SIM, pop in the new one, restart. My phone comes back to life with a fresh number, a blank slate. No message history. No contact from Carter Crane.
I hold the old SIM card in my palm. Such a small thing. A tiny chip of plastic and metal that contains months of texts I shouldn't have sent and conversations I shouldn’t have had.
I could keep it. If I tuck it in a drawer somewhere, I’ll still be able to reach him in emergencies.
What emergency? An ‘I want sex’ emergency? I’m so pathetic.
I walk to the kitchen bin and drop it in.
Akari watches from the doorway. The moment it leaves my fingers, I feel something loosen in my chest. It's done. He can text my old number all he wants now, and I'll never know. The messages will disappear into the void.
Good.
I go back to my phone and start deleting apps. Twitter first—I was never much for it anyway, and it's been nothing but vitriol since the exposé dropped. Then Instagram, then the news apps that have been sending me alerts every time someone mentions my name.
"I'm going to check my book contract tomorrow," I tell Akari. "See if there's a way out of it."
"The Crane book?"
"I don't want to write about them anymore. I don't want to think about them. I want to move on to new stories, new subjects, new everything."
Akari comes to sit across from me at the table. Her expression is thoughtful. "That's a big change."
"I know."
"And you think you can do it? Just... walk away?"
I meet her eyes. "I hope so. That's why I need you to keep me honest."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean—" I take a breath. "If I start making excuses. I need you to call me on it. Don't let me backslide."
Akari nods slowly. "I can do that."
"I'm serious. Especially if I try to justify it."
"Jamie." She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. "I've got you. I won't let you do something you'll regret."
The words hit me harder than they should. I've got you. Carter said that, in the cabin, when my heat was cresting and I couldn't think straight. He’s a liar.
I push the memory away.
"There's something else," Akari says carefully. "And I don't want you to take this the wrong way."
"What?"
"Have you thought about talking to someone? A professional, I mean."
I grimace. “I don’t know.”
"I know someone," Akari continues. "A friend of a friend. She specialises in high-profile clients, very discreet. No one would have to know."
I stare at the table. The grain of the wood, the small scratches from years of use. "I'll think about it."
"That's all I'm asking."
We sit in silence for a moment. Outside, the city is doing its city things—traffic sounds, distant sirens, the general hum of life continuing regardless of my personal catastrophe.
"So you want me to keep you honest," she says eventually.
I raise an eyebrow. "Go on."
She leans forward. "Take a pregnancy test. Not now, it's too early, but in a couple of weeks. Just to rule it out."
"I'm on contraceptives. Have been for years. I'm not worried about... you know." I gesture vaguely. "Consequences."
"Jamie." Her voice has taken on the patient tone she uses when she thinks I'm being an idiot. "Prime matches are notoriously fertile. The hormones during heat can override contraceptives. Everyone knows that."
"The odds are still—"
"Not zero. The odds are not zero."
"Fine." I'm confident it's unnecessary, but arguing with Akari when she's in mother hen mode is pointless. "I'll take a test. Happy?"
"Ecstatic." She stands and stretches. "Now, you need to eat something more substantial than a sandwich and then sleep for about twelve hours. Doctor's orders."
"You're not a doctor."
"I'm a friend who's watched you run yourself into the ground for months. Close enough."
I let her bully me into eating leftover pasta while she puts on a mindless reality show. We don't talk about Carter, or the Cranes, or any of it. We just sit together, and slowly, the tension in my shoulders starts to ease.
By nine o'clock, I can barely keep my eyes open. I excuse myself and head to my room, collapsing onto my own bed for the first time in a week. The sheets are cool and clean, smelling like laundry detergent instead of cedar and sweat.
I should sleep. My body is screaming for it.
Instead, I lie awake.
The anger has faded now, leaving something more complicated in its wake. I keep thinking about the first night at the cabin, when Carter fed me the most delicious home cooked meal I’d ever had.
I hate that I miss it.
I hate that some part of me is already wondering if I made a mistake, throwing away that SIM card. It’s still in the trash. I can get it out. What if he tries to reach me? What if he wants to apologise?
No. Stop.
This is exactly what I warned Akari I’d do: the backsliding. Carter Crane is not going to apologise because Carter Crane doesn't think he did anything wrong.
I roll over and grab my phone from the nightstand. New number, clean slate. No messages.
I open the browser.
I'm not sure what I'm looking for, exactly.
I start with "prime match biology," which leads me down a rabbit hole of academic articles and forum posts. The science is complicated. It’s all about pheromone receptors and neural pathways, the way a prime match literally rewires your brain chemistry to crave your partner.
No wonder I can't stop thinking about him. I'm chemically addicted.
I search "breaking prime match bond." These results are less scientific and more desperate. I find forums full of people asking the same question I am, looking for a way out. Most of the answers are discouraging. You can't fight biology. The bond is permanent. Learn to live with it.
But there are other threads. I find names of compounds and suppliers that exist in the grey areas of pharmaceutical law.
I find a site that looks slightly more legitimate than the others, promising discrete shipping promised. They sell something called Severex. The description claims it dampens the neural pathways associated with prime match bonding, reducing the intensity of the pull.
The reviews are mixed. Some people say it changed their lives. Others say it made them sick, or didn't work at all, or left them feeling hollow and wrong. There's no FDA approval, no clinical trials, no guarantee of safety. Officially, it’s a vitamin supplement.
I should close the browser. This is both stupid and reckless. I'm a journalist; I know better than to trust anonymous testimonials on a sketchy website.
But I also know how even now, hours later and miles away, some part of me is straining toward him like a compass pointing north.
I can't live like this. I enter my information into the purchase form and put in my credit card details.
This is a bad idea. I know it's a bad idea. But I'm out of good ideas, and I'm so tired of wanting someone who's no good for me.
I press the button.
Order confirmed.
I set my phone face-down on the nightstand and close my eyes.
It's done. All of it. New number, deleted apps, a pill on the way that might finally sever the connection.
Now I just have to wait and see if any of it works.