Chapter 7 #2
And I’ve given it back, full throttle. I don my best smiles, keep myself in relatively great shape, swipe right on any woman who looks like a good time with a side of trouble. I’m here for a good time, not a long time. I’ll fuck them and leave them—most of the time I don’t remember their names.
It doesn’t matter. They don’t matter.
Nothing matters. Not when it comes to women.
And when I first met Tori, I slotted her into that box without hesitation.
Beautiful. Smart. Guarded as hell. The kind of woman who could slice you open with a single word and then watch you bleed.
In my head, she was just another Stephanie.
Another selfish bitch in denial of her own flaws, unwilling to open her eyes and accept the fact that she is at least half at fault for the demise of her own marriage.
And I was wrong.
So. Fucking. Wrong.
Because what I saw today wasn’t cruelty or calculation. It wasn’t someone who enjoyed twisting the knife. It was survival. It was steel under pressure. It was a woman holding herself together while someone tried to dismantle her, piece by piece.
Stephanie walked away from me because she wanted something shinier, something that looked like a better story to tell her friends. But Tori… Tori walked away from Chase because she wanted to reclaim herself. And I can’t stop replaying that difference in my head.
Maybe that’s why her thank you gutted me. Because it wasn’t flirtation. It wasn’t manipulation. It wasn’t the kind of sugarcoated line you toss out when you want someone to feel useful. It was raw, unfiltered honesty. She meant it.
And for the first time in years, I wanted to mean something back.
The sound of the filing cabinet drawer closing outside my office snaps me out of my wandering thoughts and I’m suddenly staring at the same quiz. Same red pen in hand.
Perhaps I should have stayed with her after Chase stormed out.
Talked to her. Tried to take her mind off of what happened.
Instead, I walked back into my office, sat at my desk, and pretended to grade quizzes.
Because that’s what you do when you don’t know how to be human in front of someone you don’t want to scare off.
Because you’re terrified of saying the wrong thing. Because humor is easier than heart.
I tell myself I’m being respectful—giving her space.
But really I’m circling. Like a goddamn shark.
Every day I catch her out of the corner of my eye, the way she tucks a stray lock of that gorgeous brunette hair behind her ear, the way she keeps her shoulders tight.
I hear the flicker of the fluorescent light above the copy room every time she walks by.
And I’ve noticed more than I should. Not just today, not just after Chase showed his face. I’ve caught myself cataloging things I had no business paying attention to—
the coffee ring on her desk from this morning, half-mooned and drying.
The paperclip she bent absentmindedly, left by the keyboard like a tiny silver question mark.
Her cardigan draped over her chair instead of the coat hook.
They aren’t important. They aren’t even remarkable.
But they stuck anyway, like my brain wanted to memorize her without my permission.
Even when I was still convinced she was another Stephanie waiting to happen, I noticed.
I clocked the way she fidgets with her pen during phone calls.
The way she lingers by the copier like she’s buying herself a few extra breaths before heading back to her desk.
Why? Why did I notice? Why did I want to?
I don’t care about women. Not really. I use them. Bodies, lips, legs—brief distractions that burn hot and burn out. I fuck them and leave them. Most nights I don’t remember their names. That’s the deal I made with myself after Stephanie: they don’t matter, so I can’t get gutted again.
But Tori… she doesn’t fit in the box I built for women.
She doesn’t fit anywhere I try to shove her.
Our banter earlier in the day—how the hell did that feel like foreplay when it was about a goddamn quiz?
Why did I like sparring with her, testing her, pushing until she pushed back harder?
Why do I want her mind just as much as her body?
I don’t want this. I don’t want her. I want easy. Disposable. Forgettable. Yet instead, I’m sitting here with a red pen in my hand, distracted by the echo of her voice, thinking about the curve of her mouth when she smirks at me and the way her eyes sharpen like she knows more than she says.
Why is this woman taking up so much space in my thoughts?
And now, now that I truly see her, I want to tell her to sit down, to let someone pour her coffee, to let someone make the world less sharp for a second. I want to fix it with a wrench and a curse word.
There’s an ache, too. Not the old anger that burned when Stephanie left.
This feels different. Softer. Riddled with something like…
possibility, if that isn’t too ridiculous.
Seeing her try to keep it together makes me want to be better than the versions of myself that took things for granted.
It pisses me off and fills me with something that’s not pity.
Maybe it’s respect. Maybe it’s something I’ll have to name later when I’ve downed a few shots of whiskey and let the alcohol loosen the walls around my tortured heart.
And it scares me in a way I don’t want to admit. Wanting things is how you get hurt. Naming them is how you get owned by them. So I don’t name anything. I just sit here like an idiot with the sudden urge to be good.
I also know boundaries. I know not to barrel in and play hero in a way that makes her smaller.
There’s a fine line between being protective and being patronizing, and I don’t want to cross it.
So I’ll do the only thing I can think of that’s both cowardly and careful: I’ll continue to leave the door open and keep my distance, make my presence obvious without smothering.
If she wants me, she’ll say it. If she doesn’t, I’ll be respectful.
I’m not a saint. I’m not even sure I’m honorable.
But I won’t be the asshole who watches and does nothing.
The quiz still sits in front of me. The red pen idle. The paper is just a square of pulp and ink and some student’s half-assed work. Not important. Not compared to this.
I push the stack aside and lean back in my chair, finally, the gravity of this place now centered on her.
Before I breathe out, I think—always stupidly melodramatic—about how people show up for others.
Not with grand speeches, not with dramatic rescues.
Sometimes with three stupid words that sound like a threat and sometimes with a quiet hand near a bag or a single text five minutes later that says: You okay?
I tell myself I’ll step out there, be present, just in case. Someone needs to be on her side, even if it’s just as a witness to the fact that the world didn’t let him take her tone, her boundaries, or her dignity without consequence.
Except, she’s not there. Her desk is empty. The cardigan’s gone. The paperclip question mark sits alone. I look at the clock. It’s 5:04 p.m. She must have shut that filing cabinet on her way out.
And now I’m left with the one question I don’t want to answer: if she was just another woman, if she didn’t matter, why the hell do I feel her absence like this?