Chapter 43 Textually, Fractured
TEXTUALLY, FRACTURED
NOLAN
The sky is ablaze with fire and gold, and for once, it mirrors the way my insides burn, not with anger, but with the sick heat of realization.
Like I’ve walked into a room where everyone else already knows the secret, and I’m the last to figure it out.
The last to understand what she’s afraid of.
The last to see her. And the last person she’ll ever trust to hold it all.
Standing barefoot on the beach, the tide pulls at my ankles, warm and constant. The wind lashes salt against my skin, but it’s not what stings.
That award goes to Textually Frustrated, i.e. Rorie Adams.
Digging my phone out of my pocket, I pull up the contact.
No photo. Fake name. Just two words that somehow carried a whole damn world.
For a long moment, I just stare at it, remembering the first message. The sarcasm. The wit.
My mind fast-forwards to the way she slipped into my nights like she belonged there. Her words filled the silence and made it bearable. She knew exactly what to say. And she was always, always her.
And I was me.
I swipe through our old texts, thumb dragging slow. It’s all so glaringly obvious now—the humor, the stubbornness, how she cared too much even when she pretended not to.
Every word.
Every joke.
Every late-night confession…
On instinct, I back out of the messages and switch over to my inbox.
Rorie’s last email is sitting there—sharp, professional, signed with her full name. I click into it. And there, embedded in the contact block at the bottom, is her number.
I blink. My chest tightens. It’s the same number I’ve been texting for months. The same one I never saved because I’d sent her that goddamn pause email and walked away like a coward. Never even thought to program it in. Never looked closely.
It was her.
Rorie.
Rorie.
The tornado in heels I kept walking into, even when I swore I shouldn’t. Every jagged word between us, every stolen glance, every brush of skin, charged the air like lightning waiting for a place to strike.
And damn, did she strike.
I wanted her the first second I saw her.
Before Textually Frustrated gave me late-night texts and whispered secrets. Before Rorie’s lips touched mine and rewrote my idea of desire.
The chemistry between us was never subtle, it burned in silences, sparked in every argument, pulsed with every breath. Even when I tried to bury it under professionalism and pride.
She was the one I wanted with a hunger I didn’t know how to tame.
Not just for her body. For her mind. Her chaos. Her heart.
The part of her that laughed at my arrogance and still saw through it.
And now?
She’s the same woman I went to for everything. My friend. Without realizing it or even knowing it was her.
And I just left her.
She called after me, voice cracking open the night, and I fucking kept walking. Just like that jackass from her past. The one who made her believe that needing someone when you’re at your worst is asking too much. That leaning on someone means watching them walk away.
Shit.
I’m no better than him.
I did the very thing she was terrified of. Proved her fears right. Made her feel like she was too much just for telling me the truth.
First the email. Then the silence. Now this.
I’m fucking this up.
Left and right.
My jaw clenches as I stare out at the darkening horizon, the last of the sun bleeding into the sea like a wound. I should be beside her. I should’ve stayed.
I have to fix this. Not for me. For the girl who made me laugh when I was shattered. For the woman who kissed me like she meant it. For the person who trusted me—until I gave her every reason not to.
I turn back toward the lights of the resort, the sand biting at my feet.
Time to prove I’m not like the one who ran.
Time to be the man who stays.