chapter twenty-three
Willa
Monday came whether she wanted it to or not.
But life didn’t work that way.
And heartbreak didn’t either.
So, she got up.
Pulled on a pair of jeans that felt too stiff, a soft charcoal sweater that smelled faintly of Lena’s detergent and boots she didn’t remember buying. She twisted her hair into a low, half-hearted bun. Dabbed concealer under her eyes and left the rest of her face alone. No energy for masks today.
She didn’t recognize herself in the mirror.
But she grabbed her keys anyway and left the apartment.
The subway was packed—normal Monday chaos—but Willa barely registered it.
She stood wedged between two strangers, swaying with the lurch of the train, her headphones in but no music playing.
Just the vague white noise of the world moving around her while she stayed suspended somewhere inside her own head.
When she pushed through the doors of Side B, the familiar creak of the entry floorboard greeted her.
Everything was just as she’d left it.
The scuffed hardwood floors that had never quite been refinished.
The battered leather couch by the window, still perpetually occupied by freelancers who overstayed their welcome.
The faint scent of burnt espresso hanging in the air—the machine was a disaster except in Brody’s capable hands.
And the low hum of Monday’s playlist—the inevitable moody indie rock Julian was convinced would change the face of music journalism if only the rest of the staff would get on board.
It should have felt normal. Comforting, even.
But it didn’t.
It felt distant. Like she was visiting her own life from the outside.
Willa lingered just inside the door for a second too long, her hand tightening around the strap of her bag. Her chest ached, a hollow echo against her ribs.
She wasn’t the same girl who’d left here five weeks ago. The one who had been nervous, skeptical, closed off.
She had loved someone, still loved someone.
And now she didn’t know how to fit that heartbreak back into the life she’d started to outgrow.
Jordan looked up from her desk, her dark curls pulled into a messy bun, a highlighter cap balanced absently between her teeth. She froze when she spotted Willa, her eyebrows lifting in immediate surprise before her whole face softened.
“You’re back,” she said gently, the words landing soft as a cotton ball.
Willa nodded once. “Apparently.”
Jordan didn’t ask anything else.
Just stood, crossed the short distance between them, and wrapped her arms around her.
It was brief.
But it was enough.
Warm and grounding and solid in a way Willa hadn’t realized she needed until she was in it.
She let herself lean into it for just a breath—long enough to remember that not everything was lost. That there were still people who cared. Still hands reaching back.
Jordan pulled away, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder before heading back to her desk like nothing had happened.
Willa exhaled slowly and moved deeper into the office, dropping her bag by her chair with a soft thud.
She opened her laptop mostly out of muscle memory.
Slack notifications pinged quietly.
Her inbox was overflowing—dozens of emails stacked in an endless, flashing scroll.
Edits. Follow-ups. The business of being Willa Archer — Senior Staff Writer.
The last week, she hadn’t done much of that. She’d been lost in Frankie Monroe.
She stared at the screen for a long minute, then opened the article document.
And just sat there.
Half of it was written; the other half waited. How the fuck was she supposed to finish it now? She would, of course. But it might be the final straw that hollowed her out completely.
Her hands hovered above the keys, the cursor blinking in quiet, expectant rhythm. She didn’t type a word.
Because for the first time in a long time, Willa didn’t know what her voice sounded like anymore.
* * *
Willa had written exactly one sentence—and deleted it six times. She stared at the blinking cursor like it was taunting her. Everything she tried to type felt wrong. Like a bad imitation of herself.
The words didn’t flow the way they used to. Maybe because too much had changed. Frankie had changed her.
She was still glaring at her screen, stuck between starting over again and just shutting the whole laptop closed, when a hand appeared in her peripheral vision.
An Americano slid onto the corner of her desk—no lid, no sleeve, just a plain white cup, steaming and strong.
She looked up to find Brody standing there, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie, his usual casual slouch tempered by the quiet kindness in his eyes. Lena had filled him in for her. So there was no curiosity in his face, no questions waiting, just understanding.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” he said, voice low and gruff like he was afraid of saying too much. “But it’s strong as hell.”
Willa’s mouth twitched.
Not quite a smile. But close.
Closer than she’d been all morning.
“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice rough from disuse but genuine.
Brody didn’t hover. Didn’t push.
Just gave her shoulder a brief, grounding squeeze—the kind of touch that said You’re not alone—and wandered back toward his desk without another word.
Willa stared at the cup for a long moment, the steam curling up into the fluorescent light above her.
It smelled like burnt beans and hope: biting, imperfect, exactly right
She took a sip.
It was too hot. Slightly bitter. Harsh in a way she didn’t realize she’d missed.
Exactly what she needed.
She leaned back in her chair, letting the cracked vinyl creak beneath her, and closed her eyes for a second.
Let the noise of Side B wash over her—the low, steady clack of keyboards. The ring of a phone two desks over. Jordan’s laugh, sharp and bright, rising over the murmur of conversation.
The city moved outside.
The office moved inside.
The world spun on.
And maybe—maybe she could, too.
Maybe she didn’t have to have the next thing figured out yet.
Maybe it was enough, right now, just to sit here.
To drink bad coffee and let herself exist in the wreckage without needing to rebuild it all at once.
She opened her eyes again, the cursor still blinking back at her, expectant but no longer hostile.
She didn’t know what came next.
Didn’t know what she was supposed to do with all the love still tangled inside her chest.
But for the first time since she walked out of that hotel room, Willa realized she wanted to find out.
Even if it hurt.
Even if she was scared.
She wanted to keep living.
Because that was the thing about loving someone for real—you didn’t get to unfeel it.
You just carried it with you.
And somewhere, somehow, that had to mean something.
She took another sip of coffee.
Turned back to her laptop.
And this time, she didn’t delete the first line she typed.
She kept her head down, answered emails mechanically. Scheduled a few interviews she didn’t remember agreeing to. Half-skimmed articles she’d normally read twice.
Every now and then, her gaze would flicker up—toward the windows, toward the city still pulsing outside—and she’d feel the ache rising in her throat again.
She buried it.
Focused on the next task. Then the next.
It was mid-afternoon when Julian’s message pinged on Slack:
Can you come by my office?
Willa pushed out of her chair, wiped her clammy palms on her jeans, and walked the familiar path down the short hallway.
Julian sat behind his desk, sleeves rolled up, tie a little loose, hair sticking up slightly like he’d been running his hands through it all day. He was typing something when she entered but stopped as soon as he saw her.
“How was the tour?” he asked, leaning back, studying her over steepled fingers.
“Busy,” Willa said immediately, defaulting to the safest word she could find. “A lot of moving parts.”
Julian smiled slightly, the way editors do when they hear an answer that tells them nothing and everything at once.
“Well, it sounds like you were thorough. Think you’ll be able to finish the piece?”
Willa nodded, her throat tight. “Yeah. I’m working on it. Just… figuring out structure.”
That part, at least, wasn’t a lie.
Structure. God, if only she could find it—for the article, for herself, for everything.
“Cool,” Julian said, nodding. He picked up a pen, tapped it absently against a file folder. “Let me know if you need anything. You know we’re excited about it.”
And that was it.
No digging.
No prying.
No questions about Frankie beyond her role as subject.
No mention of the piece being personal—or the fact that Willa’s entire chest still felt bruised from how personal it had actually become.
She was just the reporter who had gone on tour.
Just a writer on assignment.
Exactly what she was supposed to be.
Willa offered a polite smile, excused herself, and walked back to her desk on autopilot.
The unspoken agreement hung in the air behind her:
Whatever had happened out there in those weeks on the road—whatever had broken open inside her—was staying locked behind her ribcage.
Untouched.
Unspoken.
That was how she needed it.
Only Jordan, Lena, and maybe Brody even knew fragments of the truth.
Even then, they kept it tucked between them carefully, like a fragile thing no one wanted to jostle.
It wasn’t pity Willa wanted.
It wasn’t even comfort.
It was silence.
It was space.
Space to figure out how to breathe again without feeling like she was stealing air that wasn’t meant for her.
The rest of the week blurred.
Work, eat, sleep, repeat.
She answered Julian’s emails with single sentences.
Ate the leftovers Lena boxed up for her without tasting them.
Pulled on hoodies and jeans like armor and shuffled between her bed, her desk, and the kitchen without thinking too hard.
She worked late—not because she needed to, but because she didn’t know what to do with the hours otherwise.
She avoided the final days of the tour in her notes—the ones she was supposed to write about.
The ones where everything had shifted.