Page 17 of Let it Crackle
He didn’t say a damn thing. Didn’t defend me. Didn’t correct the guy. Didn’t so much as blink.
Just stood there. Let it hang in the air like some inside joke between brothers. Like he agreed. Like I was just another girl to use and leave standing in the shadows, humiliated.
The worst part is how familiar it feels.
I press my back against a stop sign and suck in a breath that tastes like rust and failure. Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry. Iget out my phone and get an Uber. There’s no way in hell I’m going back to his house.
But the moment I shut the apartment door behind me, my legs give out. I slide to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. And that’s when the sobs come—raw and humiliating, shaking my whole body.
Because I let him in.
I let him read my words. My fantasies. I kissed him like he was the last first kiss I’d ever have. I let him see every part of me—needy, messy, desperate. I opened myself wide and let him crawl inside. My phone keeps buzzing. I know it’s him. So I pick up my phone switch if off and throw it across the room.
I curl up on the couch, clutching his fireman T-shirt around me like armor. It still smells like him—peppermint shampoo and smoke and something warm underneath. I hate that it makes me feel safe. I hate that I don’t want to let go of it.
My laptop sits open on the coffee table, taunting me with its blinking cursor. The final chapter waits—our final chapter. The firefighter and the librarian. A happy ending I let myself believe in for one second too long. I was going to show it to Maddox tonight. Surprise him with it.
I stare at it. And then I reach out.
Delete. Delete. Delete.
One key. Then another. And just like that, it’s gone.
Like he was never there at all.
I snap the lid shut and shove the laptop under a pillow, like burying it could erase the shame bleeding through my skin. All I want to do is crawl in a hole and die.
I don’t go to work the next day. I know he thinks he’ll find me there, but I don’t want to cause a scene by storming out the minute he walks through those doors.
I don’t answer the phone. Don’t check the messages. Even when the landline rings—probably Miss Esther wondering where her limping librarian disappeared to—I let it go.
Was this just a game to him? Was I just some dirty fantasy to bring to life before going back to his real world, his real life, where girls like me don’t exist?
I limp to the bathroom and catch my reflection in the mirror. Red eyes. Splotchy cheeks. Wild, hopeless hair. Just a girl who should’ve known better.
“You’re an idiot,” I whisper.
And the worst part?
I’d do it all over again.
Every word. Every kiss. Every breathless second of being wrapped up in his arms. Just to feel that good again. Just to believe, for one brief moment, that someone wanted me like that. But he didn’t. Not really.
I hear the knocks, but I don’t answer the door right away. Not even when the knocking continues.
I just sit there on the floor, knees drawn up, phone face-down beside me like it’s done something wrong. The apartment’s dark except for the rain slashing across the window and the faint glow from the hallway outside.
Another knock. Louder. Then his voice. “Maya.”
I close my eyes. Of course it’s him.
I know I should ignore it. Pretend I’m not home. Make him feel even half of what I’ve been sitting in for the last forty-eight hours. But then I remember how I begged to be wanted. To be seen. And now that he’s here—seeing me—I hate how my body still wants to let him in.
The door creaks open.
He’s soaked, hair dripping into his eyes, still in his uniform shirt with the collar half undone like he tore it off mid-drive. His boots leave puddles on the mat.
I don’t say anything.
