Chapter 30
The walk from Mina’s car to my apartment feels like a trudge through wet cement. My wrist throbs beneath the clear tattoo wrap. I rub at the edge of the bandage, gentle, not wanting to disturb the brand new scales of justice now stitched into my skin.
The elevator rises, and when it finally delivers me to my floor, the hallway is dim.
I slow when I see there’s a man standing at my door. He doesn’t look real at first. For a full second, I think I’m hallucinating him. Are hallucinations common after getting a tattoo?
He’s wearing a white button-down, no tie, sleeves rolled up to show his ink.
James.
One hand holding a small, white bakery box.
I blink several times, thinking that if I do it enough, this mirage of him will disappear. But it doesn’t. He’s really here.
He sees me and stands straighter. The box trembles slightly, so I know he’s as off balance as I am. He waits for me to close the distance.
When I reach my door, there’s a silence that swallows every sensible thing I might say. So instead I ask, “Are you lost, Mr. Sterling?”
His mouth does that little half smile. “No, Anders. I’m exactly where I meant to be.”
I glance at the bakery box. “What’s that?”
He lifts the box in explanation. “Birthday cake.”
It takes me a second. “How did you know it was my birthday?”
He hesitates. “It’s on your employee profile. I have an unusual memory for dates. And I wanted to do something nice.”
James finally moves, offering the box to me and I take it from him, our hands brushing.
“What is that?” he asks, nodding at the fresh ink on my wrist.
“Oh,” I blush. “Mina took me to get a tattoo for my birthday.”
He runs his thumb over the plastic wrap covering the tattoo. “It’s cute.”
“Thanks.”
I look down at the box. The cake is small, but still too much for me to eat alone. “Do you want to come in? For cake, I mean.”
He gives me a curt nod, and I fumble with my keys, pushing the door open wide with my hip.
James steps in and stands awkwardly.
I set the cake on the kitchen island and flip on the under-cabinet lights, the whole apartment suddenly rendered small and exposed.
I feel the pressure of his gaze everywhere: the art on the walls, the scuffed baseboards, the collection of half-dead plants Mina insists on gifting me every few months.
“This is nice,” he says, taking in the apartment.
I shrug. “Thanks.”
I open the box, revealing a cake so absurdly perfect it looks photoshopped. It’s pale pink buttercream, piped rosettes, and in looping script, the words: Happy Birthday Avery.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, feeling a little silly describing a cake that way.
He nods. “I wasn’t sure what flavor you liked, so I picked vanilla. Felt…safe.”
“Vanilla is perfect.”
I rummage in the silverware drawer for something to cut the cake, my hands too shaky to trust with anything sharper than a butter knife.
The silence thickens around us, and I realize we’re both waiting for the other to break it.
I cut two slices and plate them, handing one to him. We sit on the countertop barstools next to each other, cake in front of us.
The first bite is all sugar. I close my eyes and let it melt on my tongue.
“It’s good,” I say.
James doesn’t respond, his mouth full with his first bite.
“I really appreciate the cake, James, but you didn’t have to do this.”
He puts his fork down. “I wanted to see you.”
I don’t know what to do with that. I want to say the distance was for the best, but the words lodge and never come out. I take another bite, letting the frosting glue my teeth together.
James watches me, his face unreadable. “I’m sorry,” he says. “For the way things ended. For everything.”
I swallow around the lump that’s formed in my throat.
The apology lands hard, and for a moment, I just sit with it.
I focus on the cake, on the uneven fork marks, anything to avoid his eyes.
My hands worry the edge of the plate, tracing circles.
Because I know if I look at him, I’ll say something stupid or worse, start to cry.
Finally, I say, “Don’t be. We made our choices.”
He nods, but I can tell it’s not enough. There are a thousand things he wants to say, but all of them are too painful, too loaded.
“You know you can’t be here. If your father finds out—”
“He’s not going to.” There’s a steel in his voice, a certainty. “And I’m not here as your boss, anyway.”
“Then why are you here, James?”
He closes his eyes, as if searching for the answer inside his own skull. “Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Because I’m miserable without you, and I don’t have a single goddamn clue what to do about it.”
I stare straight ahead, still unable to hold his gaze.
“And I didn’t want you to be alone tonight. Not after everything.”
For a second, I want to say thank you, or that I wasn’t alone tonight, or even fuck you for showing up here when I was finally learning to forget.
Instead, I ask, “Do you want some water?”
He blinks, caught off guard by the normalcy. “Yes. Please.”
I pour two glasses and set them down.
There’s a pause, a long exhale where the world seems to shrink to the hum of the fridge and the slosh of water in our glasses.
James reaches out, not quite touching me, but his hand hovers in the space between us. “Are you okay?”
It’s the most dangerous question in the world, and I hate him for asking it.
“Not really,” I say. “But I’m getting better at pretending.”
“You don’t have to pretend with me. I’m hurting too.”
The admission doesn’t help, only hurts more.
“We both knew what we were doing was wrong, and now we have to live with the consequences. No matter how painful they might be,” I say, and I know the words sound harsh.
James nods, and I swear I can feel him deflating. I can feel it in myself, too.
He finishes his cake and wipes his mouth with the napkin, as if he’s wrapping up a business lunch. “I should go.”
I don’t argue. I follow, stopping just shy of him. There’s a tension, and for a moment I’m sure he’s going to reach for me, or I’ll reach for him, or maybe we’ll both pretend none of this ever happened and eat cake together until the end of time.
He stands in the threshold for a second, then turns back, and gently kisses my forehead. “Happy birthday, Avery.”
All I can do is nod, and watch as he disappears down the hallway.
After the door closes, the apartment feels two sizes too big. I eat the last forkful of cake standing at the kitchen counter, letting the sugar settle into my bloodstream.
For a long minute, I do nothing. Just listen to the tick of the fridge, the subtle creak of the building, Salem’s claws skittering somewhere out of sight.
I clean up the counter. The remainder of the cake goes into the fridge. I rinse the plates and watch the steam curl up against the overhead lights.
I’m exhausted. Not just in the way of a long day, or even a long week, but in the way that suggests something has been fundamentally emptied out within me. I try to imagine what it would take to refill it. Maybe sleep, or a lobotomy.
I drift toward the bedroom, cake aftertaste clinging to my molars, making the inside of my mouth sticky and sweet.
Brushing my teeth, I take a good, long look at myself in the mirror. I don’t just look exhausted. I look wrecked, completely drained. For a second, I have the strange urge to apologize to my own reflection, but even that feels like more work than I can handle right now.
I finish brushing and splash water on my face. I strip down to my underwear and crawl into bed, pulling the sheets up to my chin.
I don’t sleep. Not at first. I just lie there. When I finally reach for my phone, the screen’s blue glare is like a slap.
There are seventeen unread notifications.
There’s a cluster of messages from my law school friends, group texts full of inside jokes and the kind of performative love you only get from people who survived three years of hell with you.
Each message is a slight comfort, but also a reminder of how far I’ve drifted from all of them. From who I was.
There’s a message from my parents in the family group chat.
My mother has sent a text that says, “Wish we could be together! Love you always, Mom & Dad.” My dad has replied with a string of emojis, none of which are relevant to the context.
I don’t answer, but the ache in my chest is less brutal, a more dull throb.
The last message is from Nash.
Trouble
Happy Birthday. I miss you.
It sits there, radiating pain and longing in equal measure.
I miss him, too. But I won’t say that.
Instead, I turn off the phone and stare at the ceiling, tracing the line between shadow and wall.
Sleep doesn’t come, but eventually the room gets softer, the city outside falling away until it’s just me, and the quiet, and the memory of what I once had.
In the morning, the first thing I do is check for new messages. There’s nothing. Not from James, or Nash, or anyone else.
I make coffee, try to ignore the leftover cake in the fridge, and watch the sun crawl across the floor.
Salem curls up in my lap, purring against my legs. I scratch behind his ears and try to remember how to feel good again.
I stare out the window, wondering what comes next, and wait for the day to begin.