Page 19 of One Room Vacancy
I gave him a night.
And if that didn’t change anything…nothing will.
FOUR
PRESENT DAY
GABE
The tall brick apartment building stands unchanged, but it still feels like it’s glaring at me.
The bright mums lining the steps, the hanging baskets, the stupidly serene oak tree—they all feel like set dressing for a life that isn’t mine yet. One I’m barging into. My grip tightens around the handle of the box I’m carrying, and I pretend the weight in my chest is just the weight of my shit.
I haven’t even made it through the door and I already want to turn around.
This morning’s phone call with my mom lingers like smoke in my lungs. Her slurred “Just thinking about that time,” and the way she still forgets—or refuses to believe—that Kara and I are done. That she always loved Kara more than she ever loved me. That maybe she just loved that Kara made me easier to deal with.
But Sage is the one I have to face now.
I knock, even though I have the key. Wes gave it to me last week with a shrug and a muttered “She’ll get over it.” He was trying to help. But this feels like walking into enemy territory unarmed.
“One sec!” she calls through the door. A beat later, it swings open, and she stops short when she sees me.
“Oh. It’s you.”
The smile drops. The whole vibe shifts.
“It’s me,” I say, trying for neutral.
She narrows her eyes. “Didn’t Wes give you a key?”
“He did. It just felt rude to use it.”
“Wouldn’t be your first time being an asshole,” she says, arms crossing over her oversized Braves T-shirt. “So why change it up now?”
I swallow. “I’m sorry.”
Her gaze hardens. “Oh? For what?”
“For everything.”
It’s vague, sure, but it’s the truth. I’ve got a catalog of things I’ve done wrong, and most of them start and end with her.
She stares at me for a long moment, like she’s daring me to flinch, and then turns on her heel and walks back into the apartment without a word.
I step inside slowly, the air thick with everything we’re not saying. She sprawls across the couch like she owns the place—which, to be fair, she kind of does—and flips open a magazine. No glance in my direction. No acknowledgment.
Just silence.
I spend the next hour hauling boxes, the strain in my muscles doing nothing to distract from the one behind my ribs. The spare room is bigger than I expected, clean and empty except for a few stray thumbtack holes in the walls and curtains that still smell like Hannah’s perfume.
It’s nothing, but it’s mine now.
I take a long shower, hoping the hot water will wash off more than sweat. It doesn’t.
When I walk back out, towel slung low on my hips, Sage is at the stove, stirring something in a pot. Her back is to me, but her shoulders tense the second she hears my footsteps.
She turns, eyes trailing briefly down my chest before darting away again, and I swear I see the faintest flush rise in her cheeks.
