Chapter 27
Raven
Hours pass as I stare at my phone like it’s a bomb about to detonate, Matteo’s name lighting up the screen. I let it buzz, buzz, buzz against my hand until silence returns. The apartment feels too big and too small at the same time, my breathing too loud in the emptiness he’s left behind.
Pin it.
I reach for the mental tack, trying to shove tonight into the same box where I stuff all my bad decisions, but my fingers slip through nothing. Some things refuse to be pinned down.
Sleep doesn’t come, and I feel like the clock on my phone is taunting me. Two becomes four in the morning, which bleeds into eight.
All I have to show for my sleeplessness is discovering that my ceiling has this tiny crack shaped like Florida, and I’ve never noticed it until now, when I’ve been staring at it for hours.
Psycho Bastard flashes on my phone again at ten-fourteen, and I watch it ring out. My hand hovers over the screen, caught between the urge to answer and the need to protect what’s left of my dignity.
Psycho Bastard: I tried calling you, Little Thief. Why aren’t you picking up?
A snort escapes me at the stupidity of the text. Why do people feel the need to say they’ve called? The missed call tells me that. Instead of doing the grown-up thing and replying, I mark the text as unread. When the onslaught continues, I finally text him back.
Me: Sorry, feeling like death. Some kind of stomach bug.
The lie tastes sour, but the three dots that appear immediately are worse. He’s right there, waiting, watching. Has he been staring at his screen all night too?
Psycho Bastard: Feel better. I’ll call tomorrow.
Pin it, pin it, pin it.
Sunlight fills the apartment, harsh and unforgiving. I should get up. I should clean. I should shower and eat something and remember how to be a person who doesn’t feel like they’re drowning in still water.
Instead, I lie here, cataloging the mess like it’s evidence of a crime scene. My crime scene. The scene where Raven Carter finally did the one thing she promised herself she never would—got attached. Expected something. Hoped.
At some point, I must doze off because when I open my eyes again, the light has shifted. It’s coming in at a different angle, painting stripes across my bedroom wall instead of my bed.
My phone shows three more texts where he offers to come by, and the last one asking if I’m okay. I’m not.
Sunday blurs into nothing. I pace. I scroll mindlessly through social media. None of it registers. There’s just this hollow pit in my stomach that has nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with shame.
Because that’s what this feeling is—not heartbreak. Heartbreak would be too romantic, too justifiable. This is shame. The sharp, acrid taste of knowing better and doing it anyway. Of walking right into the bear trap with both eyes open.
I check my phone again. Again. Again. There’s a text from Leo asking about my week, and I can’t even bring myself to answer that. What would I say? Hey twin, I fell for the Mob boss I stole from, and he played me like a fucking violin? No thanks.
Monday morning, I wake with a start, my hand already reaching for my phone. Seven-thirty. I have a meeting in two hours.
I call in sick. My voice is actually raspy from disuse, so it doesn’t even feel like lying when I tell Holston I’ve caught some bug and that I’ll keep him updated.
It takes eighteen minutes to walk from my bed to the kitchen. Not because my apartment is huge—it’s decidedly not—but because I keep stopping. Staring. Forgetting where I was going or why I stood up in the first place.
I’d call it dissociation if I were feeling clinical, but I’m not. I’m feeling nothing and everything at once.
The coffee I make tastes like nothing. I leave the mug half-full on the counter, where it joins two others from yesterday. Or maybe the day before. Time’s getting slippery.
“You’re being pathetic,” I tell the empty apartment. My voice sounds wrong, too loud in the quiet. “So he used you for a job. So what? It’s not like you didn’t know what he is.”
But that’s not it, is it? He said he loved me. Love. Me. Not my perfect ass, not my stupid sense of humor. Me. You don’t send loved ones into the bathroom to square off with… other people.
And what was with the Tony shit? Was it really that much harder to prepare me by saying Antonia? Is Matteo Russo cursed and only has a certain number of letters he can pronounce before becoming a mute? No, I don’t fucking think so.
The anger comes in waves. At him for the manipulation. At me for falling for it. At Tony and her perfect fucking hair.
I check my phone. Nothing new from Matteo. Just yesterday’s concern. Well, isn’t that just insulting? I don’t want to hear from him. But I want him to want to hear from me. Is that really too much to ask?
Despite my best attempts to pin it, I fail. There are no pins left, no neat little boxes to compartmentalize this humiliation into. It spills out, messy and insistent, refusing to be contained.
The TV flickers with some mindless reality show—hot people on a hot island doing hot people things. I’ve been staring at it for an hour, maybe two. I couldn’t tell you a single thing that’s happened.
My mind keeps circling back to the restaurant, to the moment the door opened and the first cracks appeared in what I’d stupidly thought was a date. My phone buzzes on the coffee table. Matteo again.
Psycho Bastard: How are you feeling, Little Thief? Do you need anything?
My stomach flips over, a sickening lurch that has nothing to do with my fake stomach bug. My hands are shaking as I pick up the phone, then set it down again without responding.
I need air. I need space. I need to be anywhere but here, trapped in this apartment with all these feelings I never wanted.
I’m almost at the door when someone knocks. Two sharp, controlled raps that reverberate through the wood and straight down my spine. I know that knock. Of course I do.
My breath locks in my chest. For a split second I swear I hear the memory of splintering wood, remembering the way he broke in last time like the lock was a suggestion instead of a boundary.
I’m so not ready to deal with him yet.
My pulse hammers so hard it feels like it might shake the hinges loose all on its own. He’s going to kick it in, flashes through my mind, wild and panicked, and… angry. I don’t want him here.
“Open up, Little Thief.”
The knock comes again, slower this time and only once. My hand hovers over the handle, fingers tingling, but I stay perfectly still. If I don’t move, if I don’t breathe, maybe he’ll think I’m not here. Or that I’m sleeping since I’m supposedly sick.
If I’m lucky he’ll… what? Go away? Kick it in? I don’t even know which one I’m rooting for.
After an eternity—maybe thirty seconds, maybe three hours—the hallway goes quiet. No kicked-in door. No rattling handle. Just the distant hum of the elevator and the echo of my own heartbeat in my ears. He’s gone.
But when I reach the door, I can’t make myself turn the handle. Outside is Cleveland. Outside is a world where I might run into him, where I’d have to see his face and remember how it felt to be looked at like I mattered.
“I love you.”
Nope, I can’t handle that. Inside is safer, even if inside is slowly suffocating me.
I end up on the bathroom floor by evening, back against the cool wall, knees drawn to my chest. The wine bottle in my hand is nearly empty. Is it my first? Third? I’ve lost count. The room spins pleasantly, dulling the edges of thoughts I don’t want to have.
My makeup from Saturday night is still on, mascara tracks down my cheeks like war paint. I try to wipe them away with my thumb, but it only smears the black further, making me look like I’ve been crying oil.
“God, stop it,” I mutter to myself, watching my mouth form the words in the mirror cabinet across from me. “Just stop it.”
But I can’t. The tears keep coming, hot and humiliating, plopping onto my bare legs. Cleveland was supposed to be my fresh start. New city, new job, new me. Instead, I’m the same old me. Just with a different scenery.
I watch myself like it’s someone else falling apart—this blonde girl with raccoon eyes and wine-stained lips, hugging her knees on a bathroom floor. She looks pathetic. She looks small. She looks exactly like what I’ve always been terrified of becoming.
I lift the bottle to my mouth, tipping it back for the last swallow. Wine dribbles down my chin in a murky, pinkish streak. My hand drops, the empty bottle clattering against the tile.
“Pin it,” I whisper to my reflection, but we both know it’s too late for that. “Please.”
Hours later, the floor still feels like the only honest place left in the world. My phone is in my hand, and I can’t remember when I picked it up or why I’m squinting at Piper’s name in my contacts like it’s written in a language I barely understand.
What matters is that my finger is hovering over the call button while some tiny, still-sober part of my brain screams that this is a terrible idea. I call anyway.
The phone trembles against my ear, my hand shaking so badly I nearly drop it twice before Piper answers on the fourth ring.
“Lee?” Her voice is thick with sleep. “It’s two in the morning. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say automatically, then laugh, a wet, ugly sound that catches in my throat. “Everything. I don’t know.”
There’s rustling on her end; sheets being pushed aside, a lamp clicking on. I picture her sitting up in bed, her hair perfectly tousled even in sleep because Piper doesn’t know how to be messy. Not like me.
“Are you drunk?” she asks, fully awake now.
“Spectacularly,” I confirm, my eyes welling up again for no reason at all. “Piper, I fucked up.”
“Are you hurt? Do you need me to come get you?”
“No, not hurt.” I press my palm against my sternum where something aches, sharp and insistent. “I mean, yes. But not like that.”