Chapter 25 He Didn’t Leave, and That Was the Problem
HE DIDN’T LEAVE, AND THAT WAS THE PROBLEM
Holly
“... Fuck.”
Holly didn’t let herself think about why she let him take her home.
She just moved. That was the trick, really.
If she kept moving, she didn’t have to feel.
If she didn’t feel, she didn’t crack. If she didn’t crack, she wouldn’t become someone else’s story again.
Her legs carried into her building, and she let herself rest against Nate when he slipped a supportive arm around her in the elevator.
That was the thing. He’d gone from being a cocksure, arrogant jerk who’d just wanted to fuck to…
whatever this was. Stepping up. Holding her without expecting anything in return.
Moving with her, as silent as a shadow, because he seemed to sense she didn’t know what the hell to say.
And it wasn’t the heavy, controlling silence men used when they wanted you to fill the space with apologies.
He was just present, like he was proving moment to moment that he could be a safe place.
She opened the door to her apartment, which was little more than an open-plan living area, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small balcony.
Nate followed behind her, but didn’t comment on anything.
Didn’t smirk at the various dance shoes she had lined up against the wall by the front door.
Ignored the stack of unopened mail that screamed woman actively in survival mode.
He hovered by her kitchen table like he was waiting for permission, broad shoulders filling her sanctuary in a way that would’ve been comical if her insides weren’t still vibrating. She kicked off her shoes and reached for her purse to retrieve her phone.
“I’m ordering food,” she said, as if announcing it could stop her hands from shaking.
“Okay,” Nate replied behind her, voice careful.
She hated careful. Careful meant people thought you were fragile.
Holly yanked open a drawer, found the stack of menus she never used, and lined them up on the counter anyway. She could feel him watching her without staring, which somehow made it worse. She could feel his attention like warmth on the back of her neck.
“What do you want?” she asked, keeping her back turned like it was a shield.
“Whatever you’re having.”
Holly exhaled through her nose. “Christ. Are you allergic to opinions?”
“I’m allergic to picking wrong and getting stabbed,” he said, and there was something light in his voice, something trying to be light and teasing, but not sure about the edges of the line they’d blurred.
It worked, a little. Not enough to make her laugh, but enough to make her chest loosen by a millimeter.
Enough to remind her she still had choices.
She ordered Thai. Enough for two starving people and a third imaginary witness.
It arrived too fast, and she paid for it before Nate could offer.
She didn’t want to owe him anything. She didn’t want kindness with strings.
They ate at the tiny table by her balcony, knees bumping occasionally beneath the surface.
The city looked in, all concrete and faded dreams. Holly shoved food into her mouth like fuel, letting him exist quietly in her space.
He asked a few safe questions about rehearsal, about the next week’s dance, about whether she preferred spicy or mild, and she answered like she was being interviewed for a job.
Keeping it transactional was safer. Easier.
Cleaner. If she stuck to logistics, she didn’t have to acknowledge that her body still remembered his bed like muscle memory. Like temptation.
Like a goddamn mattress-shaped mistake.
After dinner, she put on some garbage reality show with too many shouting contestants and too much manufactured drama.
She curled up on the couch with her arms holding a pillow to her ribs like a barrier, staring at the screen without watching it.
The noise was essential. It filled the gaps where thoughts could slip in, tracking Lars in with them like a smear of fresh dog shit on the carpet of her future.
Thoughts would bring rosy Tivoli lights, the bite of winter in the air and the taste of humiliation.
They’d bring the feeling of being sixteen again, foreign and starving for approval, thinking she’d been chosen when really she’d been collected.
She could still hear his voice, feel the way her skin crawled when he got too close.
Holly could normally block him out. But he’d picked his moment in the studio today like a master tactician launching a pre-war campaign.
He pushed at her boundaries as if making her feel small was his favorite hobby.
She’d kept her face neutral, becoming the ice queen she was renowned for being. But even ice had to melt sometime.
The TV kept going, auto-playing something neither of them was watching.
Holly didn’t move. Exhaustion was sinking into her like cement born from too many years spent holding herself together on a wing and a prayer.
Nate sat beside her, close enough that the heat of him was a whole thing. A problem she refused to acknowledge.
“You should sleep,” he suggested eventually, voice low and careful.
“I’m fine,” she replied automatically. A reflex. Her signature move. Easily the most committed long-term relationship she’d ever had.
He didn’t push. Didn’t argue. Just let the silence stretch out until it felt almost safe. Almost earned. Then, just as the lie started to settle…
“You’re not.”
It wasn’t an accusation. Holly’s throat tightened. Anger rose fast, bright, so much easier than tears. She turned toward him with a look that should’ve ended the conversation right there, the look she used on judges and exes and strangers who thought they were entitled to her feelings.
“What do you want me to say?” she asked, voice too hard for the quiet of her living room. “That I’m exhausted? That my life is one long list of bills and deadlines and pretending I’m not terrified?”
Nate didn’t flinch. He didn’t do that stupid thing people did where they rushed to reassure you, turning your pain into a problem they could solve so they didn’t have to feel it. He just looked at her like she was a person and not a performance.
“I don’t want you to say anything,” he replied. “I just don’t want you being alone tonight.”
The words landed in her chest like a stone dropped into water. Holly swallowed hard, clocking the humiliating heat crawling up her throat. She hated that her first instinct was to tell him to get out, to get away before she did something pathetic like accept comfort.
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” she said, and her voice was smaller than she meant it to be.
Nate’s gaze softened in a way that made her skin ache.
“Okay,” he said, like it wasn’t a burden. Like it wasn’t something he could use against her later. “You don’t have to show me anything. I’m still here.”
That was worse. That was so much worse, because it wasn’t demanding. It wasn’t conditional. It was kindness that didn’t come with leverage, and Holly didn’t know what to do with it. She stood abruptly because sitting was becoming dangerous, and reached to turn the TV off with the remote.
“You can sleep here,” she said, too fast, words clipped like she could turn this into a practical arrangement. “In the bed. I don’t care.”
Nate got up as well, careful, as if he understood sudden movements could spook her. “Alright.”
Holly walked the seven feet into her bedroom like she was going to war.
She pulled off her hoodie and leggings and climbed into bed wearing an oversized T-shirt, turning her back to him immediately.
She’d normally have a shower. Go through her skincare routine.
Maybe read a little. But none of those things felt appropriate with him there.
Her heart was racing, stupidly, like sharing a bed was more intimate than fucking.
At least sex had rules. At least sex had a script.
Holly felt the mattress dip under his weight as he sat on the edge of the bed, and then Nate slid in behind her. A moment later, when she was sure he’d settled, she turned off her bedside lamp. The room went dark. The only sounds were the distant city and the soft shift of bedding.
Holly lay rigid, staring at nothing, her mind racing like a trapped animal. She told herself she was fine. That she could stop wanting him there at any time. Promised herself it would be easy to tell him to leave, because she wasn’t someone who needed a man to make her feel safe.
But her chest tightened. It came out of nowhere, brutal and unfair, like the air had been sucked from her lungs. She pressed her palm flat against her mouth, trying to physically stop the sound that wanted to escape. She swallowed hard, again and again, trying to force the panic back down.
But the tears were already glistening on the crest of her cheek. Hot. Stupid. Unwanted. One breath hitched. Then another. Then the floodgates buckled, and she couldn’t hold it anymore.
Holly cried silently, shoulders trembling, face pressed into the pillow so the sound wouldn’t betray her. She hated herself for it. Hated that she’d let Lars into her head again. Hated that she’d let Nate into her apartment, into her bed, into this moment where she was weak and raw and too human.
Nate shifted behind her, moving in close with careful concern. She tensed, the instinct to flinch when his hand ghosted over her belly. Holly knew that touching someone at moments like this could turn into expectation. She almost told him to stop. Almost snapped a wall back into place.
But then his arm slid around her waist, gentle, warm, not trapping her, not claiming her. Just holding her like she was allowed to fall apart without being punished for it. His hand settled over her stomach, heavy and steady like an anchor with his fingers splayed over her warm skin.
Holly’s throat cracked open.
The sob that escaped her was quiet but violent, like it tore its way out.
More followed, shaking her body, humiliating and unstoppable.
Nate didn’t react like it was ugly. He pressed his mouth to the back of her shoulder through her shirt, a simple, almost instinctive touch, and stayed there like he’d decided this was where he belonged.
She thought of her mom. The scans. The money.
The fear. The exhaustion of being strong every day until strength stopped meaning anything at all.
She thought of Lars. The humiliation. The way she’d turned sharp because softness had been used against her.
She thought of how Nate had looked at her on stage, like she mattered so much it scared him.
Eventually her crying slowed, turning into shuddering breaths that made her ribs ache. Nate’s hand swept in slow circles over her stomach as if soothing a frightened animal. It should’ve made her feel small, but it actually made her feel safe. That was the worst part of all.
Because there, in her tiny dark bedroom with her throat still tight and her pride in pieces, Holly whispered the one thing she never let herself want.
“Don’t leave.”
The words barely existed. They were a breath. A confession. A weakness. Nate’s arm tightened around her with a hint of possessiveness, and she felt his forehead rest against the back of her head like a vow.
“I’m here,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
Holly didn’t answer. If she opened her mouth again, she might say something worse.
Something real. So she stayed still. She let him hold her.
She let her body go slack against him, like she was finally too tired to keep fighting gravity.
And somewhere in the dark, as her breathing evened out, Holly realized something that made her stomach twist with fear.
She didn’t feel trapped or owned. Right now, in this moment, she felt cared for. Which meant she wasn’t just in trouble.
She was already falling for him.