Chapter 2 #2
Everything is still there, untouched since the last time I looked six months ago after finishing a romance novel that wrecked me.
Concert ticket stubs from The Anchor, the dive bar downtown where we watched terrible local bands and didn’t care because we had each other.
A smooth beach stone with a natural hole worn through the center that he swore would bring me luck.
A dried rose so fragile now that touching it risks turning it to dust. And at the bottom, turned face down like that might somehow lessen its power, the photograph.
My fingers hover over it, trembling. This is pathetic.
I’m pathetic for keeping this, pathetic for looking at it, pathetic for the way my heart kicks into overdrive knowing it’s there.
Heroines in romance novels always keep mementos from the men who broke their hearts.
In those stories, he comes back and they get their second chance, their hard-won happily ever after.
In real life, holding on to the past makes you look sad and desperate.
I flip the photo over anyway.
Five years dissolve like they never happened.
There we are, frozen in what I thought would last forever.
I’m eighteen, my dark hair whipping across my face, caught mid-laugh at something he said.
And Zayn—God, Zayn is looking at me like I’m the only thing in his universe that matters.
His arms wrapped tight around my waist, pulling me back against his chest. His hair is a mess from the ocean wind and from my fingers running through it.
His blue-gray eyes shine with something I was naive enough to believe was love.
The rose tattoos climb up his forearm and disappear beneath his rolled sleeve, dark ink against tan skin.
We’re standing on the cliff path where I walk Mia every morning. The ocean stretches endless behind us, the sky painted in shades of purple and pink by the setting sun. We look impossibly young, recklessly happy, completely convinced our always would actually last.
My fingertip traces the line of his face in the photograph. His strong jaw. The slight crook in his nose from that fight when he was sixteen. Details I should have forgotten by now, features that shouldn’t still be burned into my memory.
Something cinches tight around my ribcage. It hurts. Not crying yet, but that dangerous moment right before the tears come when everything feels too big to contain. I swallow hard against it.
“Don’t,” I whisper to myself, to the empty room, to the girl in the photograph who had no idea what was coming. “Don’t you dare.”
In my romance novels, this is the scene where the heroine completely falls apart over her ex. She’d blast heartbreak playlists, polish off a bottle of wine, ask her friends for an emergency intervention involving ice cream and terrible movies.
But that’s not who I am. I don’t shatter into a million pieces. I might bend or crack, but I hold myself together through sheer force of will.
“He means nothing to you now,” I tell myself, my voice barely audible over Harper’s bass line bleeding through the walls. “He left. He chose his fancy job and his big city future over you. His ‘always’ came with fine print and an expiration date.”
My body knows I’m lying. My pulse hammers in my throat, my face burns hot, my breathing comes shallow and quick. Five years of pretending not to care—gone because of one old photo.
Because the truth is, I’ve spent half a decade building my entire life to avoid feeling exactly this way ever again.
I go on dates with nice men who could never break my heart because I never let myself care enough to fall.
I follow the same routine day after day.
I built walls so high and thick that no one gets close enough to hurt me.
I devour romance novels because it’s infinitely safer to experience love through fictional characters than to risk my own heart in the real world.
A cold, wet nose nudges insistently at my hand. Mia shifts closer, her brown eyes locked on my face with that intensity only dogs possess. She whines low in her throat, concerned. When I don’t immediately respond, she shoves her head under my palm, demanding attention.
“Hey, girl,” I whisper, my fingers scratching the soft spot behind her ears. Her fur is warm and silky as she leans her full weight against my side. “I’m okay. Promise.”
She knows I’m full of lies. She places one heavy paw on my leg and presses harder against me, like she’s physically trying to hold me together, to keep all my broken pieces from scattering.
I force myself to look at the photo one more time. At Zayn’s face. At the way he used to look at me like I was his entire world, like nothing else could ever matter more. Until I didn’t matter at all anymore.
My fingers won’t steady as I shove the photo back into the box, burying it under the brittle rose and ticket stubs and worthless lucky stone. I slam the lid shut—the sound too loud in the quiet room. I freeze, listening hard. The shower is still running. Harper’s music pounds on.
I return the box to its hiding place and press the loose floorboard back down until it sits flush. Out of sight, out of mind. Just like he should be. Just like he was supposed to stay.
“I won’t let him hurt me again,” I tell Mia, who tilts her head like she understands every word. “I’m not that naive eighteen-year-old anymore. I’m stronger now. Smarter. I know better.”
But my body knows what my brain keeps denying.
Zayn is back, and no matter how many times I’ve convinced myself I’m over him, that I’ve moved on, that five years is more than enough time to heal—my body disagrees.
It remembers everything. How his hands felt on my skin.
The sound of his laugh. The safety of his arms around me.
The way he whispered “always” against my lips like it was a vow he actually intended to keep.
I take a deep breath, trying to slow my racing heart. Five years of protecting myself, of moving forward, of becoming someone who doesn’t need anyone. I can’t let him knock everything down in one day.
But later, when I’m brushing my teeth and washing my face, going through my nightly routine on autopilot, I can’t stop seeing that photograph behind my closed eyelids.
I tell myself it was a lifetime ago, that we’re completely different people now, that the past should stay buried—but I know with sinking certainty that this isn’t going to be easy.
Nothing with Zayn ever was.