Chapter 20 #4
I smiled to myself.
"I think I am."
About thirty minutes later she finished applying my treatment and helped me beneath one of the large hooded dryers.
"I'm going to run next door and grab breakfast while this sits," she said. "I'll be back in about ten minutes."
"No problem."
The salon grew even quieter after she left.
The steady hum of the dryer surrounded me while I leaned back in the chair and unlocked my phone.
I answered a few emails, replied to a client, and absentmindedly scrolled through my calendar.
The television mounted high in the corner played softly in the background.
Sports highlights.
Pre-game predictions.
Interviews from around the league.
I wasn't paying much attention until I heard the anchor say Jalen's name.
My eyes lifted automatically.
At first I smiled.
Then the smile disappeared.
The screen filled with a photograph of Jalen standing beside his SUV in what looked like a restaurant parking lot.
I frowned.
I didn't recognize the picture.
Then my eyes shifted.
A woman leaned casually against the passenger-side door with a bright smile on her face.
The waitress.
The same waitress from the lounge.
Every muscle in my body went completely still.
The headline slowly crawled across the bottom of the screen.
**ALL-STAR JALEN CARTER SPOTTED COZY WITH MYSTERY WOMAN. DOESN'T LOOK LIKE GIRLFRIEND AMARA SINCLAIR.**
For a second, I genuinely thought I had read it wrong.
I blinked.
Then I read it again.
The words hadn't changed.
The anchor continued speaking, but I couldn't hear a single thing she was saying.
The blood rushed loudly through my ears until it drowned out everything else.
I stared at the screen as more photographs appeared.
One showed Jalen smiling.
Another showed the waitress laughing.
A third captured them standing close enough that anyone looking at the picture would assume they were together.
My stomach dropped so suddenly it felt like the floor had disappeared beneath me.
"No..."
The word escaped before I even realized I had spoken.
That didn't make any sense.
He had spent almost every day with me for the last two weeks.
He had fallen asleep on my couch.
He had eaten dinner in my kitchen.
He had kissed my forehead goodbye less than twelve hours ago.
My mind desperately searched for an explanation, but my heart had already started racing ahead of it.
The old voice I had spent years trying to silence suddenly came roaring back.
See?
My mind immediately betrayed me by repeating the lie trauma had convinced me was true: that people always leave, people always lie, and people always become someone different once you finally trust them.I gripped the arms of the salon chair until my knuckles turned white.
My breathing became shallow, and I could feel my chest tightening with every passing second.
The television continued cycling through the photographs while the anchors speculated about whether Jalen's relationship with Houston publicist Amara Sinclair had already come to an end.
Each sentence felt like another punch to the chest.
Tears blurred my vision before I realized I was crying.
I quickly wiped them away with the back of my hand.
Not here.
Please, not here.
I swallowed hard and stared at the floor, willing myself to breathe, but my body refused to listen.
The room suddenly felt too warm.
The dryer sounded unbearably loud.
For the first time in weeks, the walls around me didn't feel safe anymore.
They felt like they were closing in.
My chest tightened so suddenly it felt like the air had been pulled from the room.
For a second I couldn’t breathe.
The photo replayed again.
She was leaning against his car, laughing at something.
Close enough to him to look familiar.
Close enough to look comfortable.
My heart began pounding so hard it echoed in my ears.
I forced myself to sit still.
Gratefully, the salon was empty except for me, the low hum of the dryer, and the television quietly repeating the segment.
Still, I kept my expression calm.
But inside my chest, everything was twisting into knots.
My hands tightened around the arms of the chair as the screen flashed the image again.
I tried to be rational. Tried to slow my thoughts down before they got away from me.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was an old picture.
Maybe the media was twisting it into something it wasn't. But the longer I stared at the screen, the harder it became to ignore the feeling settling in my stomach.
But the headline sat there like a blade.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to blink away the tears threatening to spill over.
I couldn't fall apart here.
I refused to let strangers watch me come undone over a headline that I still didn't fully understand.
The dryer buzzed, signaling that my treatment was finished, and a moment later my stylist walked back into the salon carrying an iced coffee and a paper bag.
"There you are," she said with her usual bright smile. "How are we doing?"
I looked up at her through the mirror and smiled back with a level of effort that suddenly felt exhausting.
"I'm good."
She smiled.
"Perfect. Let's get you rinsed out."
My voice sounded steady.
It sounded calm.
Years of smiling through uncomfortable meetings, difficult clients, and painful memories had taught me how to wear composure like armor, and today that armor slipped into place without me even thinking about it.
For the next thirty minutes, I answered every question she asked, complimented my haircut when she turned the chair toward the mirror, thanked her for fitting me into her busy schedule, and even laughed politely when she showed me a funny video on her phone.
If someone had walked into the salon at that moment, they never would have guessed that my entire world felt like it had shifted beneath my feet.
When I finally paid, hugged her goodbye, and stepped outside, the afternoon sun hit my face with an intensity that made me squint.
The warmth that had felt comforting only a few hours earlier now seemed almost unbearable.
I unlocked my car but didn't get inside right away.
Instead, I stood there staring across the parking lot as though the answers I needed might somehow appear if I waited long enough.
My phone vibrated in my hand.
Jalen.
His name filled the screen alongside the picture I had taken of him a week earlier when he wasn't paying attention.
He was smiling at something Cal had said, and I remembered laughing because he hated having his picture taken.
My thumb hovered over the answer button.
A dozen different thoughts crashed into one another all at once.
What if the pictures were exactly what they looked like?
What if they weren't?
What if there was an explanation?
What if there wasn't?
The phone stopped ringing.
Before I had the chance to decide what to do, it started again.
Jalen.
I stared at his name for several long seconds as my chest tightened.
Every part of me wanted to hear his voice.
Every part of me was terrified of what he might say.
Slowly, I pressed the decline button.
The ringing stopped.
The silence that followed somehow hurt even more.
My phone lit up again.
Another text from Jalen.
Then another call.
I ignored them all.
By the time evening rolled around, I still hadn’t answered him.
His game was starting soon.
Instead of answering, I tapped Nia’s name.
She picked up almost immediately.
“Mars… I’m so sorry.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
“So you’ve seen it,” I said quietly.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “It’s everywhere.”
I leaned against my car, staring out across the parking lot.
“Have you talked to him?” she asked.
“No.”
“Mars—”
“I’m ignoring all his calls and texts.”
There was a pause on the other end.
“I think you should hear him out, kid.”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me.
“No.”
“Mars—”
“I feel stupid,” I said quietly. “Humiliated.”
Another silence stretched between us.
Finally she spoke again.
“Are you still going to the game tonight?”
I looked down at my hands.
Part of me knew showing up would be the right move.
Publicly, at least.
Not being there would make him look bad.
But walking into that stadium with thousands of people watching me after that picture had been circulating all day would make me look even worse.
Like a woman pretending everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t.
“I can’t,” I said softly.
Nia exhaled slowly.
“You sure?”
“I can’t face all that right now.”
She didn’t push me.
“Okay,” she said gently. “Just… don’t make any permanent decisions tonight.”
“I won’t.”
But the truth was I didn’t know what I was going to do.
When we hung up, my phone lit up again.
Jalen.
Another missed call and text.
I turned the phone face down on the seat beside me.
For now, I just needed silence.
I didn’t go straight home.
The thought of walking back into my house—into the quiet rooms that still smelled faintly like his cologne from that morning—made my chest tighten again.
Instead I drove.
No real destination.
Just slow turns through familiar streets while the late afternoon sun dipped lower across the city.
At one red light I glanced down at my phone sitting in the passenger seat.
Five missed calls.
Eight texts.
All from Jalen.
I turned the screen face down again and kept driving.
I drove for nearly twenty minutes before I realized I wasn't paying attention to where I was going.
My hands had been guiding the car on instinct while my mind replayed the interview, the photographs, and the headline over and over again.
By the time I looked up, I found myself turning onto a street I could have driven with my eyes closed.
My parents' street.
I hadn't planned to come here.
Some part of me had simply known where I needed to be.
The neighborhood looked exactly the way I remembered it from childhood.
Children rode bicycles along the sidewalks while a few neighbors watered flower beds or waved to one another from their front porches.
The familiar brick homes stood quietly beneath the evening sky, and for just a moment the world felt untouched by everything that had happened earlier that day.