Page 86 of Midnight Between Us
Simone
Walking away is easy.
It’s the staying that wrecks me.
I head straight to the mudroom for my sandals and purse before marching toward my car.My eyes are blurry with everything I won’t let fall.My chest feels tight—not from panic, just from trying to hold it together for five seconds longer than I actually can.
If I stay in that house one more second, I’ll combust.My fingers move on autopilot—first text goes to the girls:
Need wine, ice cream, maybe baby snuggles.Level: Keir.
The next one is for Finnegan.Short.Direct.Not even pretending to be civil:
I’m going to town.Fuck you and your stupid rules.
Okay, not sweet.But I can’t be in that house with Keir and if Finnegan tries to stop me, I swear I’ll quit.I have enough savings to pay for part of my debt.Not that there is an actual number posted somewhere.Nope I can’t even say, hey I just paid this much can I be done?I could pull the receipts if they gave a shit.They don’t.
I can’t stay in that house.Not with the walls closing in.Not when every corner is too loud with echoes of the past.Not when the silence is still vibrating from all the things we finally said.
He’s in there.
Keir Timberbridge.Infuriating.Broken.Beautiful in a way that feels unfair.He still believes that no one can love a man like him.I did so fucking much.
And the worst part is that he’s still mine in ways he has no right to be.
I turn on the engine, and that’s when it happens.
The unraveling.The tears fall and not the graceful kind.Not the cinematic ones that trail down your cheek like you’re in a sad indie film.These are hot and humiliating.Messy breathing, throat too tight, vision swimming.
A breath doesn’t land right.Then my hands start shaking.My vision blurs before I’m even out of the damn driveway.I try to blink it away, to focus on the road.But I can’t see.I can’t breathe.
I barely make it down the gravel road before I have to pull over because I can’t fucking see.
My hands grip the steering wheel like I’m bracing for impact, but the crash already happened—twenty years ago when he left and took everything soft with him.The aftershocks just never stopped.I spent years learning how to breathe without him.And now he’s back, unraveling every survival mechanism I’ve ever built like they were made of paper and sugar.Dissolving with water and his presence.
I press my forehead to the steering wheel.Let out a sob that doesn’t sound human.
Because I loved him.And in some weird way, I still do.It’s infuriating.
Because he almost killed his father and never told me.
Because he keeps looking at me like I’m still the only place that felt like home—and part of me wants to be that for him again.
And that makes me hate myself a little.The girl he left deserved better than what he did to her.
I scream.Loud.Ugly.Into the empty car, into the open road, into all the years he wasn’t there.
He says he left because he loved me.That he wanted to protect me.But love doesn’t disappear.Love doesn’t vanish in the middle of the night and forget to call for twenty fucking years.
Love fights.Love stays.
And now I don’t know what to do with this version of him.This man who’s survived things I’ll never understand, who’s hurting in places I can’t reach, and still—still—makes my heart trip just by breathing near me.
I slam the heel of my hand against the steering wheel.Once.Twice.Hard enough to stop myself from crying for a minute longer.
Then I throw the car into drive and force myself back onto the road.I have girls, ice cream, and maybe a baby who won’t judge me for crying while holding her.I need to hold something soft and sweet that won’t remind me of every failure I’ve ever made.
Because of course the universe fucks with me.Especially on days ending in y.My phone starts ringing.
