Stuck with my Guarded MVP

Chapter 1

For a Moment

I know it isn’t her. It can’t be.

But for a second, just one brutal, disorienting second, my brain glitches.

The woman standing in the lobby has her exact eyes.

That same warm honey-brown, wide and unguarded.

The same tilt of her head when she’s listening closely.

The same unconscious habit of tucking a strand of hair behind her left ear when she’s concentrating.

Like muscle memory from a life that isn’t hers.

I blink, and the illusion fractures. This woman’s posture is too careful. Too composed.

She moved through a room like gravity worked differently for her, arms wide when she laughed, her expression always half a second ahead of her thoughts.

This one wears control like armor.

Still, the resemblance is enough to make my chest ache. Enough to make me forget, for a second, what year it is. Where I am. Enough to drag up what I’ve spent ten years trying not to remember.

Same eyes. Same gesture. The resemblance is still crawling up my spine. Same legs. But hers were usually in jeans and boots, not heels and a skirt that fits like that.

She turns, and I know it’s not her.

But for a second, I let myself feel it anyway.