Chapter 17
Walking into our bar, the one he wants from me with my laptop and files clutched like armour, I have a plan.
Not a good one, but one stitched together in desperation work, write, watch him.
It’s pathetic. But then again, so am I. He’s still my heart, but my soul?
She’s slipping out the back door without saying goodbye.
Last night, he sent Pandora messages, ones where he said he wanted to see her, feel her, know her. I drowned into his pillow, sobbing rivers of salt and memory, clinging to the last thing that still smells like him.
I took our corner booth. The one he always saved for me. From here, I could watch him pour drinks and charm strangers. And he’d watch me write like I was magic. Like I was his muse.
Not anymore.
His eyes track me as I sit, opening the laptop like it’s a shield. I pull my notebook out, pages bloated with dialogue and delusion, scraps of a story I should’ve never lived. A story about a woman pretending to be a stranger just to feel seen by the man who once knew her better than air.
“Can I get you anything?” Her voice is sweet, too sweet, like rotting fruit. The same girl from the other day.
“My usual.” I don’t even blink at her. “Blake knows how I have it.”
She flinches at my tone, but I don’t care. Not today. Not anymore.
She returns with a latte and a spiced apple muffin. I glare at the plate like it slapped me. “I didn’t order that.”
Her hands tremble. “Um I know. But he said…”
“He who?” My voice is razor-blade sharp now.
“Bl-aake,” she stammers. “He said it’s your favourite.”
I lift my gaze past her, and there he is. Leaning against the bar, typing into his phone like it holds salvation. A moment later, mine vibrates. I don’t even need to check. I know it’s him. I know it’s for her.
“Take it back,” I spit. “And tell him to shove it.”
She scurries away. My phone lights up again. The screen dares me to look.
“Have you ever tried to escape the ghost of a relationship that just keeps on haunting you?”
He has no idea I’m Pandora. No clue he’s confessing to the woman he broke.
“Believe me, I have. But I’ve also been the one who didn’t want to believe it was over.”
“It’s exhausting, isn’t it?”
“What? Being the haunted one or the broken one?”
I peek over the rim of my coffee cup, eyes flicking toward him. He’s watching me. And I’m still watching him.
This is hell. This is home.
“Being haunted. I close my eyes and all I see is the past, the love the breakdown and the moments now that I’m stuck in.”
I close my eyes. All I see is the past. The love. The collapse. The ache. The splinters of a life we burned down, and now I live in the ashes.
“What moments are they? I could help you through it… If you like?”
He doesn’t know how cruel it is, offering comfort to the woman you abandoned.
“Oh, just having you is helping.” Running my tongue over my lip I settle back into the booth, sipping my latte.
Oh, just having you is helping. He response
“Having me? You’re very sure of yourself.”
He always was. Cocky Blake. The boy who never doubted he’d win. The man who never thought he could lose me until he did. Until we did.
“So, you’re fresh out of a loss, are you? Is that why you’re in this dark corner of cyberspace, looking for plastic love with real heat?” I ask him, surprised at my words as I read what I just sent.
I’m spiralling. I can feel it. The lines are blurring. I’m not Pandora. I’m Penn. But Blake he’s spilling his soul to the wrong woman. Or maybe the right one. Maybe I just wish it were me.
“I have, but it’s not fake for me. This isn’t a game. I want something real.”
“I never said it was. I’m just cynical, I guess. It’s not easy falling in love through a phone screen, is it?” I spill
“Maybe chivalry’s dead. Maybe I had to lose her to love me. Then I could love you.”
And there it is, the dagger.
I want to hurt him back, but instead, I want to wrap myself in roses and scream. I want to be her. I want to be me. But he wants Pandora, the shadow. The midnight woman with scarlet lips and mystery for days. The woman who isn’t real. The woman he thinks can heal him.
But it was me. It was always me.
“You don’t even know me.”
“Then let’s change that.”
Ping. Another message.
“I just like you, is all.”
“I want to see you. Know you. Understand you. I find your mind beautiful.”
I’m dying. Right here, in this booth, I’m bleeding out from the inside. This was our bar. Our sanctuary. Now it’s a battlefield.
He’s falling for me, but it’s a version of me I don’t recognize. One he doesn’t either. That’s fire. Someone is going to get burnt.
I glance at the screen again and shake my head.
“It scares me that you want these things… when you haven’t even heard my voice or felt my skin. You want a fantasy.” I send then straight after I send another. Fast…
“And fantasies don’t bleed. But I do.”
He walks toward me before I can brace for impact. I shove my phone between my thighs and lock it, the messages burning through the fabric of my jeans.
“Penn,” he says. “Can I---”
“You don’t need to ask to sit,” I snap. “It’s your bar after all.”
“Our bar,” he corrects.
I slide the file toward him, my palm covering it. “This says otherwise.”
His eyes drop to the hand still wearing my wedding ring. His is gone. Another gash. Another wound.
“Ah. Yes. It does.” His eyes stay hovering over my wedding ring.
“Let me—”
I cut him off with a raised hand. “Explain? Now you want to explain. After weeks of silence. After walking out like I was a bad chapter you didn’t want to finish?”
He opens his mouth. I don’t give him time.
“You walked away from me, but you also walked away from her our baby. And I’ve been screaming inside ever since.”
Tears push at the corners of my eyes. I force them back. They will not have me today.
“We both drowned,” he says. “Under words we never said. I chose to swim for the surface.”
That breaks me more than anything. He swam. He swam away.
I tap my foot, rage rising. “You kissed my cheek, Blake. And you left. No warning. No goodbye. No reason. Just… gone.”
His face pales. His hand reaches across the table.
I jerk mine away. “Sorry, but no.”
Gathering my things, I stand, letting the silence thunder between us.
I look around one last time, the air thick with memories, the ghosts of who we used to be. I walk out the door and into the street, grief. It follows me like perfume.
And inside, my heart whispers the name he used to say like it meant something
Penn.