Chapter 21 #2
At some point, I realized my fork had been resting on the edge of the table for a while, forgotten in the wake of whatever story she was telling about a PR disaster.
She talked with her hands when she got animated, sketching shapes in the air. Once, her wrist knocked her water glass, and she caught it before it could spill without even breaking eye contact.
I found myself noticing things I had no business noticing: the specific way she’d tilt her head to the left when considering a question, as if listening to a second, internal voice; the way she’d press her lips together to suppress a smile before it fully arrived.
The café changed around us, a silent stage crew resetting the scene. The elderly couple gathered their things and left. The two women were replaced by a boisterous group of students with textbooks. The angle of the sunlight through the window shifted, warming the wood of our table.
I didn’t notice the hours passing. My phone, usually a persistent weight in my pocket, stayed forgotten. The only thing that existed was the next question, the next story, the way her eyes lit up when she argued a point.
A single chocolate cupcake remained on the plate between us at the end. She glanced at it, then at me. “Do you want to split it?”
I shook my head. “Oh, no, please have it. I’m actually ridiculously particular about dessert. The frosting-to-cake ratio has to be perfect, the chocolate can’t be too sweet, it’s a whole thing.”
Her smile was one of pure, uncomplicated victory. “More for me, then.”
Watching her take the first bite, I had a sudden, irrational thought: I wished I weren’t so picky just so I could have shared that with her.
We stepped outside, the city air a cool contrast to the café’s warmth. She turned to face me, tucking her hands into her pockets. Her expression was shifting into something measured, polite… final. I knew that look. It was the look people gave before they said, This was nice, and meant Goodbye.
A bolt of pure, irrational panic shot through me. This couldn’t be the end.
The words were out before I could second-guess them. “Would you like to go on a date with me?”
She paused, glancing back at the café, then at me, one eyebrow arched. “Wasn’t that what this was?”
I took a deliberate step closer, closing the polite, public distance between us. “That wasn’t a real date,” I said, my voice lower, steadier now. “A real date ends with a kiss.”
She raised her brows, but I saw the faintest tremor of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Getting too daring, are we?”
“Depends.” I took another deliberate step, my gaze holding hers. “Is it a yes to the date?”
Her eyes held mine, a calculating gleam in their depths. She tilted her head, considering. “Have you ever been to an escape room?”
I could only shake my head, mute, utterly captured by the intensity in her eyes.
“Are you free next Saturday?”
I nodded, the movement automatic.
A small, triumphant smile touched her lips. She shrugged, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “It’s a date, then.”
She recited her number. I fumbled for my phone, my fingers suddenly clumsy, terrified I’d miss a digit and lose this thread.
I walked her to her car, a short distance that felt both endless and over in a heartbeat. She gave me one last, unreadable look before sliding inside.
I stood on the curb, the city sounds rushing back in. I didn’t know it then, standing there with the fading echo of her smile and her number glowing on my phone, but I was going to owe Liam for life.
The memories usually felt like a gift, warming parts of me I thought had gone cold. But today’s memory—the breakfast meeting, the ignored food—left me cold with a different kind of understanding.
It irked me in a way I couldn’t shake. It sat in my gut, heavy and sour, long after the memory faded.
I always did that. My brain didn’t just prefer to focus on one critical thing at a time. It demanded it. If one task was deemed critical, it received 100% of my resources.
One task at a time. Full focus. Complete immersion. I couldn’t listen to music while studying. I couldn’t hold a conversation while reading a report. I couldn’t eat in a high-stakes meeting.
Everything else was paused. Food could wait. Rest could wait.
Alessia could wait.
My company was in crisis. It was the “critical thing.” So I gave it everything. My time, my energy, my presence. I’d mentally filed my marriage under “later.” I thought I was being responsible. I thought, She’ll understand. She’ll be there when this is over.
But relationships don’t work that way.
You can’t put a person on pause. You can’t put a heart on hold. A relationship doesn’t survive on the promise of future attention. It withers in the present neglect.
The chill spread from my chest to my fingers.
I didn’t just need to be better. I needed to unlearn the very way I saw the world.
I needed to learn how to hold more than one critical thing in my heart and mind at the same time. Even if it felt messy. Especially if it felt messy.
Which was why, when Liam poked his head into my office today—as he had every day since I’d laid my soul bare to him—and asked, “Lunch?”
I didn’t say no.
Even though the work on my screen was crucial. Even though it was a strategic pivot that brought me tangibly closer to my goal. The old Cassian would have waved him off, eyes already sliding back to the data.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. “Give me a second.”
Liam’s eyes widened a fraction, the only betrayal of his shock. He quickly smoothed his expression into careful neutrality. “Sure. No rush.”
I saved the file, closed the laptop, stood up, and shrugged into my jacket. We walked out of the building, into the midday light.
And nothing happened.
No alarms sounded. No emails of immediate doom flooded my phone. The work was just… there. Waiting. And the world continued to turn.
The familiar unease still whispered at the back of my mind—you left in the middle, you walked away, it’s not finished.
I ignored it. Instead, my thumb found the familiar, cool band of platinum on my left pinky—her wedding ring, my permanent reminder. I circled it, feeling the smooth metal, the endless loop. This is why. This is the priority. People are not tasks.
With each rotation, the nagging lost a little of its edge. I was here, walking to lunch with my friend. The work would be there when I got back.
Everything was fine.
There was something else new about my mornings. After the memory, before the day could truly begin, I stood in silence before the picture of Alessia on my dresser. It was from our honeymoon, caught mid-laugh, her head thrown back, one hand pushing her hair from her face. She looked free. Happy.
My task was simple: say the words.
When I first started, it felt impossible.
The silence in the bedroom would thicken, pressing in on me until my chest ached.
There were mornings I ended up on my knees, forehead pressed against the cool wood of the dresser, fists clenched, cursing myself in a ragged whisper.
Three words. Just three fucking words. Why can’t you say them?
Other times, I just stood there, locked in a staring contest with her frozen joy, my jaw working soundlessly, until the timer on my phone chimed.
After weeks, I had managed two whole words. They came out cracked and airy, but they were there, hanging in the silent room between me and her photograph.
One word remained. The core of it. The heaviest one.
Love.
It remained the enemy. It was a stone, a hard, immovable lump lodged deep in my throat, blocking air, blocking voice, blocking everything. Its edges seemed to cut me every time I tried to force it out.
But I wasn’t giving up. Every morning, I faced the picture. Every morning, I breathed through the blockage. Every morning, I fought the stone in my throat.
One of these days, the stone would dissolve. The knot would loosen. That word would come out. And when it did, I would be a different man. The man who could finally say it.
I’d also realized my old method of showing love, through action, had been a spectacular failure. A language no one understood.
Meaning I was terrible at it.
Which meant I had to learn the literal language. I had to get the words out. I had to let people know—explicitly, verbally, without room for doubt—that they were important to me.