April
"I met someone tonight." His voice carried across marble and champagne and silence that cost money. "Wrote something about it. Thought I'd share."
But still. There was a tiny, traitorous corner of her brain that whispered what if before logic kicked it back into place.
Don’t be ridiculous.
Jiro started scanning the crowd. His eyes moved methodically. Like he’d lost something in the dark and wouldn't stop until he found the glint of it. Hunting.
April recognized the difference. She’d spent enough time being looked through to know when someone was actually searching.
And then— Her particular disaster refracted. Under the chandelier light, the oil slick of her soul caught at exactly the angle that split the glare into a rainbow.
Their eyes met. The song started. The kind of song that made you forget you were standing in a room full of people who treated gossip like a competitive sport.
Devastatingly, unfairly beautiful. April felt it settle into her chest. The melody wrapped around her.
Jiro’s voice—smooth and rough in all the right places—pulled her in.
He had the frosting, the flavor, the gold
A love story better than the ones ever told…
April’s eyes widened. The lyrics pricked at something buried. Too specific. Too sharp.
Now he’s watching the wreckage of his life unfold
It’s just a prank, babe, why the serious face
While he’s with HR in a forbidden place
A full-body prickle ran through her like cold static.
Her brain stuttered. That sounded... familiar. Her eyes started darting, scanning the crowd for recognition, for someone pointing, for the exact second someone connected her face to the lyrics threading through expensive air.
But nobody was looking at her.
Just their phones. Just Jiro. Just the moment.
Then the next verse hit.
Between the paper reams and the bleach-scented air
She’s folding into pieces, but he doesn’t care
The frosting is smudged on the linoleum floor
Shaking behind a locked supply closet door.
Her lungs stuttered. That was her. That was literally her.
April tried to shrink, to become wallpaper, to locate a side exit she could drift toward without it looking like she was fleeing a crime scene involving her own dignity.
He wrote about the closet. The supply closet—the one that smelled like lemon cleaner and the specific kind of defeat that came with realizing your boyfriend was a punchline and you were the setup.