Fable #3
Orion’s voice cuts through the spiral, and I look up to see the familiar shape of Fable Tales: the crooked sign, the crowded window display, the warm glow of the streetlight illuminating the entrance to my home.
I’m out of the car before he’s fully stopped moving, feet hitting solid ground like I’ve just escaped from something. My legs are shaky. My hands are shaking too. But I’m standing on the sidewalk outside my building, and the panic is receding, and I can breathe again.
“Thank you.” The words come out too fast, tumbling over each other in their rush to escape. “For the ride. And the… the hospital thing. And not being a serial killer, apparently. You can go now.”
He’s already out of the car, I didn’t even see him move, and he’s standing beside me, hand settling at the small of my back with a warmth that cuts through my jacket like it isn’t even there.
“I’ll walk you up.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Humor me.”
“I don’t want to humor you. I want to go inside and lie down and pretend this day didn’t happen.”
“You can do all of those things.” His voice is gentle but immovable, a very polite brick wall. “After I make sure you get up the stairs without falling.”
I’m not going to fall. I’m perfectly capable of climbing my own stairs. I’ve done it a thousand times. I…
I take a step toward the door and the world tilts sideways.
His hand tightens on my back, steadying me before I even register that I was listing.
“See?” he says, and there’s no smugness in it, just that same patient calm. “I’ll walk you up.”
I don’t have the energy to argue anymore.
I’m tired and sore and my head is pounding and there’s a stranger’s hand on my back guiding me toward my own front door, and somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice that sounds like my anxiety is screaming about boundaries and serial killers and the statistical improbability of someone this attractive being this nice without an ulterior motive.
I ignore it. I let him guide me inside, up the narrow staircase, through the door to my apartment.
The lights come on, revealing my life in all its chaotic glory: the pile of romance novels on the coffee table, the sticky notes covering every available surface, the half-empty box of Pop-Tarts on the kitchen counter, the claw clip I lost three days ago sitting on top of the refrigerator for reasons I don’t remember.
Great. Perfect. He’s seen your apartment. Now he knows you live the lifestyle of a raccoon with a stationery addiction.
“You should eat something,” he says, scanning the space, his face unreadable. “And drink water. And rest.”
“I know how concussions work.”
“Do you.”
“I Googled it. While we were waiting for the discharge paperwork. I’m very well-informed about my own medical situation.”
His mouth does that almost-smile thing again. “I’m sure you are.”
I wait for him to leave. He doesn’t.
He just stands there in my doorway, gray eyes fixed on me, and there’s a look on his face I can’t quite identify. More than a stranger doing a good deed. Closer to…
No. Stop. You’re concussed and exhausted and you’re projecting romance novel tropes onto a real human being because that’s what you do when you’re stressed.
“Okay.” I take a deliberate step toward the door, toward him, toward the clear signal that it’s time for him to go. “Thank you. Again. For everything. But I’m fine now, and you’ve done your good deed for the decade, and you can go back to your mountain and your cat who hates you.”
“Mario will be thrilled.”
“I’m sure he will.”
Another moment of silence. Another moment of him just looking at me, like he’s trying to memorize something, like he’s filing me away in some folder of his own.
Then he steps back. Out of the doorway. Into the hall.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, and it’s not a question. It’s not even really a statement. It’s a fact, delivered with the calm certainty of sunrise or incoming tide, a natural phenomenon that doesn’t require permission.
“That’s not… you don’t need to…”
“Goodnight, Fable.”
He’s already walking away. Already halfway down the stairs, already almost gone, and I’m standing in my doorway with my mouth open and my heart doing something complicated in my chest.
“Wait,” I call after him, because I can’t help myself. “Why? Why would you come back?”
He pauses at the bottom of the staircase. Looks up at me, gray eyes lit by the cheap fluorescent light of my hallway, and he doesn’t look like an angel right now, doesn’t look like a hallucination or a romance novel hero or any of the things my brain keeps trying to turn him into.
He just looks like a man. A man who showed up when someone needed help. A man who’s planning to show up again.
“Because you wrote my number,” he says simply. “And I came.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m standing in my apartment with a pounding head and a racing heart and absolutely no idea what just happened or what’s going to happen next.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
Like it’s already decided. Like it’s already certain. Like the universe made a plan and forgot to consult me about it.
I close the door. Lock it. Unlock it. Lock it again.
Three times feels like enough.
Three times feels like insurance against whatever’s coming.