Chapter 5 Through the Window
Through the Window
My scraped hands throb when the metal of the keys digs into the raw skin as I unlock our apartment door.
I’m exhausted—from the long shift at the clinic, from falling on the boardwalk, but mostly from seeing Zayn twice in one day after five years of nothing.
I want to hide in my room with Mia and lose myself in a book where the heroine never forgives the guy who abandoned her.
But when I push the door open, I smell Harper’s spicy cooking and Sara’s flowery chamomile tea.
Home. Safe. Until I have to tell them what happened.
“Sophie?” Sara calls from the kitchen. “Is that you?”
I kick off my shoes next to Harper’s scuffed black boots and Sara’s neat row of ballet flats. “Yeah, it’s me.”
Harper appears in the kitchen doorway, red hair piled messily on her head, wielding a wooden spoon like a weapon. “You’re late. I texted you five times.” Her eyes rake over me—my stained scrubs, my bandaged hands, my red-rimmed eyes. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I fell,” I say. True, but not the whole truth.
Sara steps up beside Harper, blonde hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, blue eyes instantly filled with concern. “Your hands,” she says, moving closer. “Let me see.”
I hold them out. Her touch is gentle as she examines the bandages. Careful hands from years of working with animals, like mine. “You’ve got splinters still,” she says. “I’ll grab the tweezers.”
“After you tell us why you look like you’ve been crying,” Harper adds, crossing her arms.
My stomach knots up. Here we go. “I saw Zayn again,” I say, each word feeling heavy. “At the boardwalk. We… talked.”
Harper drops her wooden spoon. It clatters against the hardwood. Her face flushes red, starting at her neck and creeping up to her cheeks. “What? He approached you? What did he say? What did you say? Should I kill him now or after dinner?”
I can’t help the small laugh that escapes. When Harper goes full mama bear, it’s terrifying and comforting in equal measure. Sara guides me to the couch, then disappears to grab the first aid kit we keep stocked for work accidents and the occasional animal scratch.
“He said he’s back for good,” I tell them as Sara returns with tweezers, antiseptic, and fresh bandages. “He took a job at Hargrove & Associates downtown.”
“For good?” Harper’s voice pitches higher. She starts pacing across our living room with such force that my romance novels tremble on their shelves. “Then he better keep his distance.”
Sara takes my right hand and dabs antiseptic on it. The sting makes my eyes water. “Try to hold still,” she murmurs, working the first splinter free with the tweezers. It hurts, but I don’t move.
“We could slash his tires,” Harper announces suddenly, spinning to face us.
Her eyes are lit with righteous fury and what looks suspiciously like glee.
“Or put itching powder in his dry cleaning! Or—wait! I know! We could hire a mariachi band to follow him around playing breakup songs!” She mimes playing a tiny violin with a completely straight face, despite how absurd the suggestion is.
I laugh again, harder this time, even as Sara extracts another splinter from my palm. Something tight in my chest loosens just a fraction. Harper’s ridiculous revenge fantasies are exactly what I need right now—someone to be furious on my behalf when I’m too confused to know what I’m feeling.
I manage a smile. “I don’t think we can afford a mariachi band.”
Harper throws herself into the armchair, legs dangling over one side. “Fine, we’ll workshop it. But he can’t waltz back after five years like nothing happened. Like he didn’t break you into pieces and then disappear.”
Sara gently cleans my other palm, her touch feather-light. “Five years changes people,” she says quietly.
Harper makes a noise like an angry cat. “Are you serious right now? You’re defending him?”
“I’m not defending anyone.” Sara doesn’t look up from my hand. “He was what, twenty-one back then? Barely out of college. People grow up.”
“Please.” Harper sits up straighter, eyes blazing. “Guys like him don’t change. They just get better at hiding who they really are.”
“That’s not fair,” Sara says, finally meeting Harper’s gaze. “You don’t even know his reasons for coming back.”
“I don’t care about his reasons,” Harper shoots back, voice rising. “I remember what it was like when he left. I was the one here, holding her while she sobbed all night. I was the one making sure she ate something, anything. I was the one—”
“I was here too,” Sara interrupts, her voice still calm but edged with steel. “And yes, it was terrible. But holding onto anger for five years doesn’t help anyone.”
Harper gestures wildly, her voice climbing.
Sara maintains her steady tone as she finishes wrapping fresh gauze around my palms. The splinters are gone but now my chest hurts in a different way.
I can’t catch my breath. The room feels too small, too hot, and the mingled scents of dinner and tea are suddenly overwhelming.
“Shouldn’t we at least hear him out?” Sara asks, securing the last bandage with medical tape.
“Absolutely not,” Harper fires back. “He lost that privilege when he chose Seattle over her. He made his choice five years ago. He doesn’t get to unmake it because he’s having regrets.”
“People deserve second chances,” Sara says.
“Not everyone does.”
Their words ricochet back and forth above my head, and suddenly I can’t take it anymore. I stand up so abruptly that both of them freeze mid-argument.
“I—I can’t do this right now,” I say, my voice shaking. “I need a minute.”
I don’t wait for a response. I turn and walk down the hallway to my bedroom, closing the door behind me with a soft click that sounds louder than it should. I lean my back against it, then slowly slide down until I’m sitting on the floor.
Mia lifts her head from her bed in the corner, brown eyes instantly worried. She stands immediately and pads over to press her warm, solid body against my side. I wrap my arm around her and bury my fingers in her soft fur.
“I’m okay,” I whisper, but my heart is racing. “I’m okay.”
But I’m not okay. Harper is furious on my behalf. Sara thinks people can change. And me? I want to protect myself, but I also want to know why he really came back. The past is full of pain. The future is murky. And I’m stuck somewhere in between, not knowing which way to move.
Mia rests her head in my lap, her weight anchoring me to the present. Outside my door, I can still hear Harper and Sara’s voices, quieter now, but no less intense.
I close my eyes and try to breathe.
I can’t sleep. Car headlights sweep across my ceiling as I lie in bed staring at nothing.
My clock reads 11:17 p.m., the red numbers too bright when I blink.
For hours, I’ve been replaying everything.
Harper’s fury, Sara’s hope, the sound of Zayn saying my name, his promise that he won’t give up.
Mia lifts her head from the foot of my bed, sensing I’m awake.
Her eyes catch the glow from the street lamp outside my window. I sit up.
“Want to go for a ride, girl?” I whisper. Her tail thumps against the comforter. She loves midnight adventures, no matter how late.
I pull on jeans and a hoodie in the dark, grab my keys, and ease my door open.
The apartment is quiet now. Harper and Sara stopped arguing hours ago.
All I hear is the refrigerator’s low hum and Sara’s white noise machine whirring behind her closed door.
Mia pads silently behind me as we slip through the living room and out the front door.
The night air hits my face, cool and damp from the ocean. Mia leaps into the passenger seat of my car like it’s her designated spot. It basically is. She’s ridden shotgun on so many sleepless nights when my brain won’t shut off, when I need to drive until the thoughts quiet down.
I start the engine and point the car toward the coast road without consciously deciding to.
The town is sleeping now, empty streets bathed in orange lamplight.
The 24-hour diner glows neon blue at the edge of town, just two truckers visible inside nursing coffee.
The gas station sits deserted and eerie under its fluorescent lights.
Mia presses her nose to the window, watching the world slide past. The radio plays some melancholy song about regret and second chances. I snap it off. I’m already drowning in my own regrets without the soundtrack.
After a while, I turn onto the narrow access road for Cliffside Trail.
My headlights illuminate the weathered wooden sign, beaten down by years of salt air.
The parking lot is empty, which doesn’t surprise me.
Only teenagers looking for privacy come here after dark, and it’s a school night.
Technically the trail closes at sunset, but there’s no gate to stop anyone from passing after.
I park and let Mia out. She hops down and immediately starts investigating, her nose working overtime in the darkness. I grab my phone for the flashlight, but I don’t really need it. The moon is full tonight, painting everything in shades of blue-white like an old photograph.
“Come on, girl,” I say. My voice sounds too loud in the stillness. Mia falls into step beside me as we start up the familiar path, her white and tan coat almost glowing in the moonlight.
I know this trail by heart from countless morning walks, but it’s transformed at night.
The scrub brush and wind-bent trees cast strange shadows.
The ocean sounds different too—the waves hitting the rocks below seem more alive, more urgent.
I breathe in the salt air mixed with damp earth and the wild grasses growing along the trail’s edge.
The wind picks up as we climb higher, whipping my hair back and carrying the promise of rain.