Chapter 7
SEVEN
LEO
What the actual fuck just happened?
I was at my desk, minding my own business, attempting to work while simultaneously daydreaming about Tori’s smart ass mouth wrapped around my…
When I heard it—him. That voice. The anger and vitriol in his words.
The sharp cadence of someone who’s so used to being listened to that he doesn’t even consider how ugly he sounds.
The way he spoke to her like she owed him something—like he owned her.
The words weren’t just loud; they were sharp enough to scrape against drywall, echoing down the corridor like knives dragged across tile.
I knew who was standing at Tori’s desk before I ever laid eyes on the prick.
She can handle herself, I told myself. She doesn’t need a savior, I reminded the idiot rising from my office chair as he crept toward the slightly open door.
My rational brain said stay put. My body didn’t listen. Every muscle was already coiled, bracing for a fight I told myself I wasn’t walking into. My pulse ticked against my jaw. My hands flexed at my sides like they were already choosing bones to break.
I was fine—calm, even—watching the back-and-forth between them.
Watching Tori handle the situation like a badass and not take shit from this asshole invading her workplace in the most inappropriate manner possible.
Her tone was sharp, steady, unflinching.
I felt a flicker of pride that didn’t belong to me, like watching someone else’s kid win a spelling bee.
She was holding her ground. She shouldn’t have to, but she was.
And then. He. Grabbed. Her. His hand closing on her arm like he had the right. Like she was property.
And I saw red.
Absofuckinglutely not.
Is she mine? No. But she’s sure as fuck not his.
“Let. Her. Go.” Three words, steady as stone. Low enough not to shout, sharp enough to slice. The kind of words that leave no room for misunderstanding.
He let go of her arm. Stepped back. Not because he respected me, but because he knew the sound of someone who wouldn’t back down—or maybe because I forced myself in between the two of them. Forced a physical separation between his body and hers. Put her out of his reach.
He put his hands on her, and I want to break every fucking bone in that man’s body. My fists actually itched for it. My pulse was a steady drumbeat against my palms, begging for an outlet. My teeth ached from the pressure in my jaw.
He had no idea I was in this office. Hadn’t considered for even a second that anyone else would be here—or maybe he didn’t care who heard his rant.
Maybe he wanted someone to hear the vile words spewing from his toxic and entitled mouth.
Thought if he said enough shit in front of her boss or some other superior she’d be fired and forced to return home with him.
Fat chance, asshole.
I was wrong. My god was I wrong. I have never been more fucking wrong about a person in my entire life—but I cannot think about that now.
Tori.
I stand there a second too long, my hands loose at my sides but the pulse in them buzzing like I’ve just gone ten rounds. The tension doesn’t leave just because he did. It hums under my skin, an aftershock that makes every nerve feel like it’s standing at attention.
I look at Tori. She’s standing there, arms wrapped around her stomach.
Her whole body drawn in tight, like she’s holding herself together with sheer will.
Her eyes are fixed on some middle distance, like if she doesn’t move or breathe too loud, she won’t crack.
There’s a flush across her cheekbones that wasn’t there before, anger or embarrassment, maybe both.
I notice the tiny tremor in her fingers, the way she tucks them under her arms to hide it.
I know I asked her something. Was she ok or did she want me to call security? Something. My voice didn’t even sound like mine—it was too soft, too careful, like speaking too loud might shatter her.
And here’s the worst part—she was still trying to act like none of it touched her.
Still trying to hold the ground beneath her feet like she hadn’t just been grabbed, like she hadn’t just been verbally stripped bare by a man who thought cruelty was currency.
She wanted to look untouchable. She wanted to look like she didn’t need me, didn’t need anyone.
And I let her.
That’s what guts me. I let her walk out of that moment carrying it all by herself.
There’s this split-second image seared into my head: the place his fingers had been blooming pink on her skin, the way she rolled her shoulder like she could shake him off the way you shake off rain.
She didn’t want comfort—she wanted distance from him, and maybe from me, too.
I didn’t reach for her. I didn’t ask her to sit.
I didn’t even offer water. I carved space around her with my body and then retreated to my office like a coward and called it respect.
If that man put his hands on her in a public place, who knows what happened behind closed doors when she lived with him.
If he said shit like that to her in this office within earshot of other people…
I think I’m going to be sick. The thought of her silenced by him before, of her shrinking in private and pretending in public, makes bile rise in my throat.
“Thank you,” she says. Quiet. Honest. Like what I did, what I said, matters. Like I helped instead of hurt her.
That sticks. Cuts deeper than it should. Because I’ve spent years believing I didn’t have anything left worth giving someone else. And somehow she makes three words feel like I moved a mountain.
The ridiculous part is how specific that thank you sounded in my head afterward—like she was thanking me for not making a scene about me.
For not puffing up, not grandstanding, not turning her terror into my ego trip.
She thanked me for space. She thanked me for a boundary.
I didn’t know that could feel like a victory until she gave it to me.
I retreat to my office before I can make the mistake of saying something decent—or worse, cracking a joke because I don’t know what the fuck else to do or say. My thoughts and emotions are everywhere. My office door stays open. I don’t think about why.
Grading quizzes is supposed to be automatic. Red pen, margin note, integer that makes or breaks somebody’s GPA. But the first quiz has been staring at me for three minutes and I can’t read a single line. My eyes skate over numbers and scribbles but none of it registers.
All I hear is her voice.
I already did. For years.
That isn’t a line you throw to wound someone. That was truth. Heavy. Final. It carried the kind of weight you only get from scars that never fade.
And the worst part? It’s familiar.
Stephanie. She regrets the years she was married to me, only our situation was vastly different.
The name itself is a bruise that never fully fades, no matter how much time passes.
I know what it is to regret years. I know what it is to look at a life you built, a life you thought would last, and realize it was made of sand.
One tide and it’s gone. I can still remember the exact way the kitchen smelled that morning she left—stale coffee grounds in the sink and rosemary from the plant wilting on the sill.
I had just returned from a week away at a conference—no, the irony is not lost on me.
The light overhead flickered every few seconds, throwing shadows across the counter like the house itself couldn’t decide if it was still alive.
Her handwriting on the note was neat. Too neat. Like she’d practiced it a dozen times before leaving it behind.
I deserve happily ever after. This is not it.
That was it. No fight. No screaming. No ugly ending scene you could point to and say, This is when it broke. Just absence and a lack of accountability for any of her own unhappiness.
I remember walking through the house like a burglar, opening drawers and closets, searching for proof that this was all a joke—that she wasn’t actually gone, that she’d changed her mind.
Her toothbrush missing. The suitcase gone.
Her favorite sweater no longer draped over the chair.
Every piece of her absence screamed louder than words.
And then, as if it hadn’t been there from the moment I walked through the front door, the silence that came crashing down around me when I finally acknowledged the truth—my wife was gone.
The silence was the loudest thing of all.
It crushed me. Not just because she left, but because of what it meant.
It meant I wasn’t enough. It meant years of trying—years of bending myself into something she might want—had still ended with her packing a bag and leaving.
And not just leaving, but leaving me for someone else—a man who reminded her of high school.
That kind of betrayal doesn’t just scar you. It rewires you.
Here’s the mess I made out of that rewiring: I built a life around never letting anyone close enough to choose me or leave me.
I pretend casual is freedom and numbness is maturity.
I learn names at midnight and forgot them with the sunrise.
I’m very, very good at clean exits. The trick is to convince yourself that leaving is power, so you do it first. Fear in fancy clothes.
I’ve carried it like armor and used it like a weapon.
Until today, this afternoon, I had convinced myself women like her—women who smile politely while their hearts are already somewhere else—are everywhere.
That charm is camouflage. That confidence is a mask.
That anyone who looks too good at holding their ground is already planning their escape.
It has made me bitter. Distrustful. Has made me believe that the sharp-tongued, self-possessed women of the world aren’t strong—they’re dangerous. That they’ll cut a man off at the knees just to stand taller.