Chapter 20 #2
Dominic shifted in his sleep, fingers tightening briefly in my hair, his face pressing into my shoulder like he was anchoring himself there. He murmured something about how Paris suited me, voice thick and soft with exhaustion.
I lay awake staring at the ceiling, memorizing the weight of him, the quiet rise and fall of his chest, the way being wanted like this felt both grounding and dangerous.
My brain was already moving through tomorrow’s logistics.
Meetings.
Edits.
Classes.
Dinner with Alix.
A call with Frankie I’d postponed twice.
I felt full.
I felt empty.
I felt lucky.
I felt like I was running a marathon I hadn’t trained for — again.
And the worst part?
I didn’t want to stop.
I just wanted more time.
More hours. More versions of myself. More ways to exist without choosing.
I rolled onto my side and pressed my forehead into Dominic’s shoulder, breathing him in — shampoo, soap, sleep, the faintest trace of the city still clinging to his clothes.
I told myself I had this under control.
I told myself I was happy.
I told myself I’d rest later.
I told myself a lot of things.
None of them involved slowing down.
Friday arrived without ceremony.
No dramatic countdown. No final checklist. Just the slow, sinking realization — somewhere between my second coffee and my third unanswered email — that this was it.
The last day he’d wake up in my bed. The last morning he’d sit at my kitchen table pretending not to notice how often I checked the clock like it might betray us.
He wouldn’t pack until the afternoon.
Which felt quietly cruel — like we were both pretending time wasn’t real as long as we didn’t give it a suitcase.
Worse, I had to leave.
Not for anything important enough to justify it emotionally.
Just a shoot where I was shadowing Cyrus, another photographer from the Daily who made competent feel like a personality flaw.
I handled lenses. Adjusted lights. Nodded at instructions I could’ve given myself.
I told myself I was lucky to be there. I told myself this was how careers worked.
At school it was even faster — a critique I half-listened to, notes I scribbled without retaining, a professor who smiled like I wasn’t already halfway gone.
I skipped the métro on the way back and took a car instead, watching the city blur past the window, calculating minutes like they were currency.
Every red light felt personal.
I came home to find his suitcase open on the floor, clothes folded with his usual meticulous care. He was kneeling beside it, holding up two sweaters like he was making a life-altering decision.
“You’re really doing it,” I said.
He glanced up and smiled. “Stealing my sweater back? I thought about sneaking out in the night with it and just leaving you a note.”
I crossed the room and immediately grabbed the heavier one — the one I’d claimed sometime around our second “date” and never returned. I hugged it to my chest like a hostage.
“I would’ve hunted you down,” I said. “Internationally.”
“I know,” he replied, and somehow looked almost pleased by that. “It was a risk I was willing to take.”
“I’m keeping this,” I added, already halfway defensive.
He raised an eyebrow. “I suspected.”
That tiny, ridiculous victory — the sweater — felt like proof I got to keep something. Not this past week, not the version of us that existed inside it. Just this soft, oversized piece of him that still smelled like his soap and my apartment.
We moved around each other carefully after that, like the air had become fragile. Like the apartment had shrunk. Too small. Too full of things we weren’t ready to say out loud.
We heated up leftovers but barely ate them.
We sat on the couch and watched half a movie without following the plot.
At some point he reached for my hand and held it, thumb brushing over my knuckles like he was committing them to memory.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
“So are you.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “But that’s because I’m trying not to say something annoying and sentimental.”
I smiled faintly. “You failing?”
“Spectacularly.”
That probably shouldn’t have made my chest ache the way it did. I rubbed my cheek against his shoulder anyway. “I’ll forgive you.”
He didn’t say anything after that. He just kissed me — not like he was trying to convince me of something, but like he was memorizing this moment and capturing it forever for both of us.
The taxi came too soon.
It always did.
We stood in the hallway with his bag between us like a third wheel, awkward and inevitable.
“So,” he said. “When am I seeing you again?”
The question wrapped me up almost too tightly.
I opened my mouth with a dozen answers lined up — after midterms, after this project, after I figure out my schedule, after things calm down — and realized none of them were real. The last thing I wanted to do was lie to Dominic.
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
Not “soon.” Not “definitely.” Just the truth.
He searched my face, not accusing. Not disappointed. Just… absorbing my response.
“Okay,” he said finally. “That wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I appreciate the honesty.”
“I’m not trying to push you away,” I said quickly. “I just—”
“I know,” he interrupted gently, stroking his fingers down my cheek then across my lips. “I know, Flash. You let me in this week and you showed me what you’re building. I can see it. I just wish I knew where I fit inside it.”
That hurt. Because I didn’t know either.
We hugged for a long time.
Not dramatic. Not desperate. Just two people holding on a little longer than necessary because letting go felt like admitting something neither of us had words for.
At the door, he kissed me softly. Once. Then again, like he was trying to imprint the moment.
“Call me,” he said.
“I will.”
“You better.”
“Let me know you get home safely,” I ordered and he winked.
“I will.”
Echoing him, I said, “You better.” His smile only grew. Then with a kiss to his fingers, he pressed them to my lips.
I walked him down the stairs, wanting these last few seconds. He moved with confidence, bag slung over his shoulder. At the main door, I let him out and watched him move through the rain to the taxi.
After one last, lingering look, he climbed into the car and then… he was gone.
I stared after the taxi long after I lost sight of it. Eventually, I made myself retreat inside and the main door closed with a quiet, almost definitive click. The walk back up seemed to take everything I had.
The apartment felt immediately larger. Quieter. Less inhabited.
I stood there for a long time, listening to the echo of his laughter and the ghost of his footsteps fade into the walls. My phone was already lighting up in my hand — reminders, deadlines, people who needed things from me again.
The space he’d left didn’t stay empty for even a minute.
My calendar didn’t wait.
And neither did I.
The strangest part was — beneath the sadness, beneath the relief, beneath the familiar tightening of my schedule snapping back into place — there was something else.
A thin, unsettling realization I couldn’t quite outrun.
I wasn’t sure whether I was more afraid of missing him…
Or of how quickly I was already refilling the space he’d just created.