yₒᵤ cₐₙₙₒₜ fₒᵣcₑ ₗₒᵥₑ. ᵢₜ ᵢₛ ₜₕₑᵣₑ ₒᵣ ᵢₜ ᵢₛₙ'ₜ.

— ₛₐᵣₐₕ Dₑₛₛₑₙ

~~~~~~~~~~

The absolute worst way to wake up is to the sound of your best friend treating this mini trip like a military boot camp.

"Wake up, people! Daylight is burning!"

Mira's voice carried through the thick walls, completely unapologetic. I groaned into my pillow, dragging the heavy comforter over my head in a desperate bid to block out the noise. Down the hall, I could hear Thomas yell something muffled and deeply irritated, followed by Anna telling him to just ignore it. But Mira wasn't the type of person you could just ignore.

"I am giving everyone exactly fifteen minutes to get out of bed, and get downstairs to help with breakfast!" Mira hollered, her footsteps stomping right past my door.

I let out a whine, tossing the blankets aside. The mountain air seeping through the window pane was freezing, making the floor feel like a solid block of ice against my bare feet. I didn't even bother looking in the mirror. I just dragged my hair up into a messy bun, tied it off with a scrunchie, and threw on a heavy knit sweater over my pajama pants. Sleep was still heavily etched onto my features, my eyelids drooping as I trudged down the grand staircase.

When I shuffled into the massive kitchen, Mira's yelling had thankfully stopped. Instead, the room was occupied by her and Nate. They were currently pressed up against the island giggling softly and kissing like they hadn't just seen each other in forever.

I stopped in my tracks, leaning against the doorframe, and cleared my throat loudly.

Nate immediately pulled back, looking mildly sheepish, though Mira just offered a completely unbothered grin.

"Sorry," Nate mumbled, running a hand through his messy hair before his eyes scanned my face. He winced slightly. "Rough night? You look like you barely got any sleep at all."

"Thanks, Nate. Love the compliment," I muttered, walking over to the sink to wash my hands.

In truth, he was entirely right. I had barely slept a wink. I spent the vast majority of the night staring at the log ceiling of my bedroom, twisting my thoughts into anxious knots over what I was going to do about Cameron. After the conversation I had with Mira the other day, the reality of my situation had finally settled in. If I accepted Cameron's question and agreed to be his girlfriend, I would essentially be living a lie. It wasn't what I truly wanted. He was a great guy—sweet, attentive, incredibly kind—but the spark just wasn't there for me.

But I also couldn't bring myself to ruin his time here. The idea of rejecting him while trapped in a remote lodge sounded like a social nightmare. I didn't want to hurt him, and I absolutely didn't want to make this entire getaway about my romantic drama. So, somewhere around three in the morning, I made a firm decision: I was going to wait. I would enjoy the trip, keep things friendly, and the second we got back home I'd sit him down and gently explain that a relationship just wasn't something I was ready for right now.

Mira's eyes slightly narrowed as she studied me. She gave me that highly suspicious look. The one that said I know something's up but I'm just waiting for you to spill the details. Stubbornly I avoided her gaze and grabbed a mixing bowl from the drying rack.

"What can I help with?" I asked.

Mira scrunched up her eyes, squinting at me. She was clearly reading the evasion, but to my immense relief, she decided not to push it. Not here, anyway.

"We need someone to handle the pancake batter. The mix is in the pantry."

"On it," I said, immediately getting to work.

Over the next few minutes, the rest of the house slowly trickled downstairs. Thomas and Anna arrived first, yawning and rubbing their eyes, quickly assigned to setting the long dining table. Surprisingly, Stacey was the next to appear. She was already fully dressed for the day in dark leggings and a pristine white turtleneck, her makeup absolutely flawless. Instead of offering to help, she simply leaned against the kitchen entryway, inspecting her nails and watching us scramble around the kitchen.

Mira stopped whisking the eggs, fixing Stacey with a deadly glare. "Stacey. If you don't pitch in, you can forget about eating anything on that stove."

Stacey rolled her eyes, letting out a highly exaggerated, begrudging grumble. "Fine. What do you want me to do?"

"Fruit," Mira instructed, pointing a spatula toward a massive bowl of strawberries and bananas. "Wash it, chop it, and put it in the blender for the smoothies."

Stacey sighed as if she had just been asked to build a house from scratch, but she slowly walked over to the cutting board and picked up a knife.

As the kitchen filled with the smell of melting butter and sizzling bacon, I realized the room was still missing two distinct faces. I paused, the whisk resting in the bowl of batter, and looked around the space.

"Wait," I asked aloud to no one in particular. "Where are Cameron and Finn?"

Anna looked up from folding the napkins. "Yeah, I haven't seen them at all this morning. Where'd they go?"

Nate casually grabbed a piece of bacon off the platter, dodging Mira's swatting hand. "Finn woke up super early. He went out to the shed to chop and collect some extra wood. Wanted to make sure we had enough for the indoor hearth today, plus extra for the fire pit out back in case we want to do a bonfire tonight."

"And Cameron?" I asked

"He offered to help Fin. carry the logs back," Nate replied, chewing his food.

My stomach instantly tied itself into a knot. Finn and Cameron. Alone. In the woods. Together. I didn't even know how to feel about that information. Honestly, I shouldn't feel any type of way about it. It wasn't like I was in a committed relationship with either of them. But the reality was messy. Unlike with Cameron, who I had been getting to know over the past few weeks, I had shared a very real, very complicated kiss with Finn. Even though that happened before Cam and I really started talking, the guilt and the anxiety were overwhelming. What if they talked about me? What if Cameron mentioned his confession? What if Finn brought up the past?

Before my mind could spiral any further down that disastrous rabbit hole, the glass sliding doors at the back of the kitchen groaned open.

A blast of freezing mountain wind rushed into the warm room, bringing both guys with it. They both stomped their boots on the heavy utility mat, shaking snowflakes from their jackets. Both of their cheeks were flushed a deep, ruddy pink from the biting air outside.

"Mmm, something smells really good," Cameron announced, quickly shrugging off his coat and hanging it on a hook.

He didn't hesitate for a second, walking straight past the island and over to the stove where I was standing. He stepped close—a little too close—and lightly nudged my shoulder with his.

"I didn't know you could cook," Cameron teased, offering a slight smile.

A nervous laugh tumbled past my lips as I gripped the handle of the frying pan, suddenly hyper aware of Finn standing by the doorway, dusting snow off his jeans. "Um, yeah, no. I'm not a very good cook," I admitted, keeping my eyes firmly on the bubbling batter. "I just followed the instructions Mira gave me. As you can see, I'm really just trying to focus on not turning the main dish into a total disaster."

From the dining table, Anna snorted loudly. "That is the understatement of the century. Do you guys remember the Easy Bake Oven incident?"

I groaned, letting my head fall forward slightly. "Anna, please don't."

"Wait, what happened?" Cameron asked, turning his attention to Anna with obvious curiosity.

"For Ruby's tenth birthday, her mom bought her this deluxe Easy Bake Oven," Anna explained, her eyes crinkling with amusement. "We all decided we were going to be professional bakers one day, so Ruby insisted on making these double chocolate chip cookies, but she accidentally used salt instead of sugar, and left them under that tiny heat lamp for way too long."

A low, rich chuckle sounded from the other side of the kitchen. Finn had a rare smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "They tasted so bad" Finn said, his voice laced with nostalgia. "I had to basically force myself to eat three of them and act like they were the best cookies in the world just so she wouldn't cry."

Cameron blinked, looking back and forth between Anna, Finn, and me.

"Oh. You guys have known each other for that long?"

"Oh, yeah," Mira chimed in, tossing the scrambled eggs. "Anna and I have been friends with Ruby since we were in, what, third grade? Or was it fourth? I don't really remember. We moved to Santa Barbara like three months apart and just latched onto her." Mira paused, gesturing toward Finn with her spatula. "But Ruby and Finn have always been best friends. Their families have literally known each other since they were in diapers."

"Huh," Cameron murmured. He just nodded his head, a curious expression crossing his face. He didn't push for more details, nor did he ask any follow up questions. Instead, he just turned back to me, watching me silently flip the pancakes.

His proximity, combined with the sudden quiet made me feel incredibly on edge. I couldn't figure out what was running through his head, and I didn't want to make a mistake by trying to guess.

Breakfast itself was a delicious but slightly strained affair. The food was incredible, but the seating arrangement left a lot to be desired. Cam sat rigidly beside me, ensuring my juice glass was constantly full and passing me the syrup before I even had to ask. Directly across the table, Finn sat next to Stacey. While Stacey talked endlessly about a boutique back home, Finn just ate his food, his eyes occasionally flicking up to catch me awkwardly laughing at whatever joke Cameron was making.

Once the plates were cleared and the dishwasher was loaded, Mira clapped her hands together, demanding the room's attention.

"Alright! The weather is perfect. The powder is fresh. Who wants to go sledding?"

"I am definitely not going out there," Stacey said immediately, taking a sip of her smoothie. "I don't do outdoor activities. I am staying inside the lodge where it's warm and completely free of wild animals and snow."

Mira simply offered an easy shrug, entirely unbothered by the rejection. "That's fine by me."

Finn pushed his chair back from the dining table, picking up his empty ceramic mug. "Actually, I think I'm going to pass today, too."

Mira blinked, turning her attention to him.

"I was out there all morning chopping wood," Finn explained smoothly, walking over to the sink to rinse out his cup. "I'm just going to stay indoors, probably put a movie on or something."

Given that Mira merely tolerated Finn on a good day, she didn't put up a fight. She didn't beg him to come or try to convince him to change his mind. She just nodded. "Suit yourself. I guess that just leaves us six, then. Everyone else, bundle up and meet at the back door."

As the group scattered to get ready, a wave of intense, suffocating anxiety washed over me. I stood still by the table, my mind instantly sprinting down a terrible, highly agonizing path.

Finn and Stacey. Alone. In this massive, secluded lodge for two entire hours with absolutely no one else around to interrupt them.

The very thought made my stomach churn. What were they going to do? Were they going to sit on the sofa together? Watch that movie he mentioned? Talk about whatever their current status was? I desperately wanted to stay behind. I wanted to sit in the living room and ensure nothing happened between them. But I couldn't. I knew exactly how suspicious it would look if I also suddenly bailed on the group activity the exact second Finn decided to stay behind. Mira would see right through it, and worse, Cameron would notice.

So, swallowing the bitter taste of jealousy pooling in my mouth, I forced myself upstairs to get ready.

Thirty minutes later, the six of us were trudging through the thick, untouched powder of the massive hill located a few hundred yards behind the property. Despite my internal dread about leaving the lodge, the adrenaline of the cold wind and the ridiculous speed of the plastic sleds eventually forced excitement through me. Anna and Thomas were currently racing Mira and Nate to the bottom, their laughter carrying through the crisp mountain air.

I reached the bottom of the slope, my boots sinking deep into the snow, and turned to wait for Cameron. He came sliding down a few seconds later, using his boots to brake before coming to a stop near my feet.

He stood up, grabbing the rope attached to the front of his red sled. He didn't look at the others. Instead, his eyes fixed firmly on me.

"So," Cameron started, his voice casual but carrying an underlying weight that immediately put me on guard. "Why didn't you tell me you and Finn used to be best friends?"

I blinked, pulling my beanie down over my ears to buy myself a second to think. "I just... I didn't think it mattered."

"It didn't matter?"

"No," I insisted, forcing a light, dismissive tone. "We really haven't been friends for the last couple of years. We grew apart. He only just moved back to Santa Barbara for senior year, and honestly, we aren't even that close anymore. It just wasn't important enough to bring up."

Cameron gripped the nylon rope of his sled, his body becoming slightly rigid "But it seems like you guys are that close now. I mean, you guys always hang out, right? He's always around."

I shot him a deeply questioning look, my defensive walls instantly slamming into place. "What does that even mean? Of course he's around, Cameron. Finn, Nate, and Thomas are literally on the same soccer team. They do everything together. They're all friends."

Cameron stared at me for a long moment. The winter wind whipped through the trees around us, but the silence between us felt graciously loud.

"Right," Cameron finally answered, his voice completely flat. He turned around, digging his boots into the snow, and started dragging his sled back up the miniature hill toward where the others were standing.

I stood there for a moment, an awful sinking feeling taking root inside me. I hurried after him, my boots crunching loudly. I reached out, grabbing onto the thick fabric of his jacket sleeve to force him to stop and turn back around to face me.

"Are you upset about something?" I asked directly.

Cameron looked down at my gloved hand on his arm, then back up to my face. "Why would I be upset about something?"

"I don't know why you'd be upset about anything," I pushed, my brow furrowing, "but it really seems like you are."

He didn't answer right away. He just stood there in the snow, his breath puffing in small white clouds between us. He hesitated, looking as though he was debating whether or not to actually say the words out loud.

"Yesterday," he began, his voice dropping slightly, losing any trace of its usual optimism. "I kind of overheard your conversation in the kitchen."

My fingers instantly went numb. I let go of his arm, stumbling a half step backward as if I had been physically pushed. I looked up at his face, searching for a trace of anger, but there wasn't any. He didn't look mad, or vindictive, or furious. He just looked sad.

"How much..." My voice cracked, betraying the panic flooding my system. I swallowed hard, trying again. "How much of the conversation did you really hear?"

"Not much," he admitted meekly, the rope slipping from his grip to land in the snow. "Just the part where you asked Finn if he and my cousin were a thing. If they were dating and stuff."

I stopped breathing. The winter air suddenly felt too overwhelming.

"At first, I didn't know what to think about it," Cameron continued, his eyes searching mine for an explanation I absolutely did not have. "When I heard you asking that, I just thought that maybe you wanted to verify if he and Stacey were actually a thing. Just looking out for a friend." He paused, a painful, heavy sigh escaping his lips. "But then when I looked into the kitchen, I noticed the way you looked at him."

My throat closed up completely.

"That wasn't the look a friend gives another friend, Ruby."

I was entirely stunned. The words stripped away every single defense I possessed. I felt so unbelievably sorry toward Cameron in that moment that my mind went completely blank. I desperately searched my brain for some type of believable excuse, some lie I could string together to tell him that he was wrong, that it wasn't what it looked like. But I couldn't, because the agonizing truth was that it was exactly what it looked like.

"Cameron, I—" I started, my voice trembling.

He shook his head, cutting me off before I could even try to formulate an apology. He stepped just an inch closer, his expression entirely open and soft.

"You don't have to explain it to me," Cameron said gently, the sadness in his eyes shifting into something so sweet it made my heart ache. "I don't really know what the history is between you two, and I don't know what's going on now. But what I do know is that I'm here, Ruby. I am right here in front of you."

He reached out, his gloved fingers lightly brushing against the edge of my sleeve.

"And I like you so, so much," he whispered, the raw honesty in his voice making the tears prick the back of my eyes. "I know I don't have years of history with you. I know I wasn't the guy eating burnt cookies in your kitchen when you were ten. But I want to be the guy who treats you right today. I just want you to see me, and realize that I would be so incredibly good to you. I just... I want you to choose me. Please, just give me a chance to be the one making you happy."

I stood paralyzed in the snow, a single tear slipping hot down my freezing cheek. It wasn't like I needed to say anything, or even could, because the moment he said those words, he'd turned his back, grabbed the rope of his sled, and continued his slow walk back up the hill, leaving me standing alone at the bottom to drown in the weight of the choice I was inevitably going to have to make.

I would really like some notes. I need someone else's eyes on my writing so I can get a different perspective. What's working, what's not. Thank you for your time.

Prologue: Agate’s First Words

Agate was cursed on the third anniversary of her birth, the same night she spoke her first words. It was not a coincidence. As a babe, she giggled when she reached for the bound stone above her bassinet and cooed in her mother’s arms while she watched the light reflect off the blunted weeding sickle above the nursery door, but nothing more. As a toddler, she clapped and shrieked watching the old stray whom her parents kept by the threshold with gifts of tossed offal, but she paid no mind to their pleas: “Say Mama? Dada? Maaa-Ma. Daaa-Da.”

The night she was cursed Agate was noisier than usual: she’d been feverish since the day before and the matron’s bitterroot tinctures were ebbing. She readied a cry to summon her parents, when she noticed something curious: two yellow lights floating in the corner of the nursery. 

Agate watched. The orbs initiated an uncanny acrobatic routine. They darted in a synchronized frenzy back and fourth, floor to the rafters, rustling the dried herbs that hung there. They circled, growing faster and faster, blurring into a frantic cyclone of light. Agate laughed and clapped. At the sound of her laugh, the lights settled. They winked momentarily. 

Narrow, vertical slits appeared on the orbs, just like the old stray.

“Eyes,” she said, her voice taking its first leap into the world beyond her lips. The orbs narrowed and the slits dilated. 

Just like the old stray before it pounced on something small and tasty.

The crash of the bassinet toppling over roused Agate’s parents. They burst into the small chamber.

On the floor, side-by-side, lay Agate and a small, gnarled log. Astride both, murmuring in cricket chirps and unseen skitters, was a hunched, hairy figure, grasping the log with one clawed hand…and Agate’s pink tongue with the other. Her parents stared as the surface of the log took on the shape of their child’s face, while its branches swelled into chubby toddler limbs.

“Thatha? Wahwah?” said Agate.

Her father broke his paralysis and seized the blunt sickle above the nursery door. 

“Get off of her!” he cried, bringing the iron tool down on the creature’s head. The beast shrieked, releasing Agate and the log. Dark bile rained on both from the wound on its head. Agate’s father booted the creature in the ribs, before scooping his sobbing daughter and shielding her against his chest. The beast tumbled over the bassinet before phasing through the nursery wall, staggering into the night. Agate’s mother lifted the abandoned log. It could be mistaken for the work of a master carver: there were Agate’s eyes, her ears and delicate fingers, even two rows of milk teeth peeking from behind the homunculus’s lips.

Agate’s mother set the manikin back on the floor. It looked too much like her daughter to drop. She wrapped her arms around Agate and her husband. She reached for the girl’s tiny hand, only to pull back. 

Three fingers with bulbous pads grasped her back where once there’s been four. 

Agate’s father ran his hand through Agate’s hair. 

Long, pointed ears jutted from the sides of her head. He pulled the girl away from his shoulder. 

They gasped.

“Dada? Mama?” she said. Tears traveled down her cheek past dark green blotches where the creature’s bile had soaked into her skin. They dribbled from her lips, which parted to reveal a pair of sharp fangs. “Dada?! Mama?!”

Chapter 1: Swales and Scrambles

A handful of years later and a world away, Agate was perched on the edge of a flooded swale watching for anything uncanny. The forest had been still that evening: no woodwings, no witchlights. Only the muffled coastal wind and the groan of the trees struggling against it. Before the Priory, during what Matron Egis called “harder days,” being “taken” by the Orchid Swales was not uncommon. Even today, novices spooked one another with candlelight stories of girls enticed by the witchlights. All snuck out past the safety of the Priory walls. None were ever seen again. All that remained were whispers: a veil snagged on a tree, a sandal slowly being consumed by the moss, and were it possible to count such things, one additional witchlight.

It was mostly nonsense.

Agate had snuck out many, many times. She’d never once disappeared, she’d never found a forsaken veil and most disappointingly, she’d never once met a ghost girl. 

That didn’t mean the Orchid Swales were free of danger.

The wind was forever remaking the forest, uprooting trees from their sandy moorings with little warning, creating a landscape of upturned roots and ankle-breaking hollows. The wind was the secret architect of the forest: Like the rings on a tree, year after year, storm-whipped waves churned the sand, filling the bay at the foot of Prickleberry Scramble with row upon row of ridges and swales. The deeper you went into the forest, the older it became, and the older it became, the more likely you were to encounter Her.

She prayed the freeze had coaxed the Orchid Mother to sleep. She was the ruler of this domain, and she was why so many during those harder days chose to “wander the swales.” She was a quiet death and a shepherd to the Old Road. Agate had only ever caught glimpses of the great spirit. Each time she’d felt the urge to run. A chance meeting now would be the worst of all. 

Tonight, Grandmother Night would ride across the Jeweled Firmament. It was Agate’s best chance to find what she needed. She had to atone. Her spite had drawn the ire of the Prioress and lost her the favor of Matron Egis. Matron Egis, her protector, who believed the Goddess would lift Agate’s affliction once she was worthy.

Agate had never felt worthy.

She felt rotten and wormy, like a forgotten log returning to the dirt. The humus at her core compelled her to sneak over the Priory walls night after night, just as it convinced her to sew Melandris into her bed for nicknaming her “maggot.” She couldn’t say which of her crawlies had suggested stuffing nettles under the girl’s blanket before pulling the last stitch, but the memory made her grin.

Pockets of light filtered through lichen-encrusted branches. Agate sniffed the air and grimaced. Even here, a full forest away from the Priory, the sour odor of the Oraculum’s divine vapors tainted her nostrils. She rubbed her nose with her sleeve and breathed the damp air. Across the swale, Prickleberry Scramble awaited.

She stepped back, then leapt across the narrow moat. Her sandals squelched and slid on the opposite embankment. She gasped and caught herself on a branch, fearful she’d been discovered.

The ripples she’d created spread and rebounded off the opposite bank. She watched until only her undisturbed reflection looked back at her. Agate sneered, and her fanged reflection sneered back. She adjusted her wimple, then stepped beyond the treeline and onto the shambles of Prickleberry Scramble. 

The coastal wind hammered her, loud enough to swallow her voice. Cloaked by its gusts, she began to sing.

“I woke up in a rooming house
By a fish market in Spa.
My lip was busted like a peach
My knuckles bruised and raw.”

Sinking below the mountains, the Great Orb reminded Agate of the golden herb biscuits she’d nabbed from the refectory earlier that day. She used the dwindling light to pick her way over the Scramble’s boulders and gravel rivulets.

“I fell onto the filthy floor,
And I cried out like a babe,
Mother, Goddess, won’t you help me?
Or I’m soon for the grave.

Walk the Old Road, sinner.
A pilgrim I’ll make thee.”

An updraft cut through Agate’s wool robes. She shivered and paused on the leeward side of a limestone pinnacle. She opened her pack and retrieved her quilt, the one Matron Egis had sewn for her. Agate swept her arm, unfurling the quilt and cloaking herself in patchwork chimeras and embroidered thickets. Useful wards against troublesome spirits and brisk winds.

The Great Orb departed, revealing the Jeweled Firmament. Agate looked down, prideful of how far she’d come. Pinched between the Scramble and the coast were the rippled Orchid Swales. Past that, stamped onto the wilderness, was the Priory and the polished dome of the Oraculum. It hummed with subtle radiance as wisps of vapor escaped through the oculus. Across the inlet was the causeway to glowing pleasure houses of Bygone Bay, the final stop on the Great Pilgrimage Road.

“That goddess of obedience
And order made manifest,
Appeared in radiant glory,
In my moment of distress.”

Beyond the town, the road began to shimmer like the coils of a racer. From beyond the horizon,  a vast, brilliant specter began to rise. The colossal head and neck of the Horse Lord Aretes soared into view, its mane drifting as if underwater. Next, the beast’s towering legs mounted the sky. Finally, astride Aretes, was Grandmother Night herself. Agate looked into her deeply lined face, pleading to be seen, but the goddess’s gaze remained fixed on the horizon. Beneath her, the world shone like cold silver.

“She looked about my shameful flat
There was sorrow on her face
She asked me: ‘Rueful villain,
How came you to this place?’

Walk the Old Road, sinner.
A pilgrim I’ll make thee.”

How can you be worthy of someone who doesn’t even know you exist? she thought. Agate picked up a stone. She hesitated, then hurled it at the Goddess’s unmoving face. Neither the Goddess nor Aretes seemed to notice.

“I felt a lie come to my lips
‘I am blameless!’ I’d inveigh.
But at the sight of her splendor,
I chose raw honesty:”

Agate turned her back on the Goddess and the Priory, resuming her climb to the peak.

‘Before I walked I learned to run,
There’s knavery in my chest.
Since birth it’s been my preferred choice
Like a cuckoo in a nest.’

‘I spit, I lie, I dance with ghosts, 
I’ve never turned down a fight.
I sleep away the blessed day,
And revel in the night.’

Agate hoisted herself onto a plateau thick with knob pine and redthorn. She lowered her voice and stepped carefully.

“She produced a simple tunic,
A tin beggar’s pot and rod.
She pointed down that ancient road,
And said ‘Obey your God.’

Walk the Old Road, sinner.
A pilgrim I’ll make thee.”

She snuck through the thickets, taking care not to snag her quilt. She emerged into a clearing dominated by a crude dolmen: a flat stone balanced atop two boulders before the mouth of a cave. Before the monument was a rugged stone courtyard with a shallow depression at its center.

Agate crept, her singing no more than a murmur.

“There’s a great truth within my song,
True for you and true for me.”
The chains of sin may bind us, but
As pilgrims we’re made-”

“Night’s blessings, Hedgegirl,” said Lord Prickleberry.

WARNING: This book was not written for you.

It was written for a judge.

A specific one.

Local.

Sitting on the bench with jurisdiction over what you're about to read.

You just picked it up first.

If you're an attorney or a psychologist — buckle up.

When you're done, pass it up the chain to a judge.

It was written as a last-ditch effort to land hard in the right hands.

It will probably land in the wrong hands first.

Doesn't matter.

Either way, it lands hard.

That's what the truth does.

---

This isn't an act.

This is how I think.

This is who I am.

If you consider yourself a human being who chooses the moral high ground of "victim" over facing liars and thieves in public — put the book down.

It's not for you.

---

Now that we've eliminated the truest liars and the real fakes from the jury pool, the rest of you qualify as real people and are hereby summoned.

All colors, shapes, sizes, faiths, alignments, groups, adults — welcome to sit in this very special and rare jury box.

Special because this court has issued a new mandate, expanding its capacity to seat an unlimited panel.

In an unprecedented departure from the normal, all prior disqualifications are stayed—calling even convicted criminals to serve as jurors in these proceedings.

And that's just the first adjustment.

The structural changes to the power dynamic is something else entirely.

---

This judge has granted each juror a power never seen in any courtroom before today.

The power to pause proceedings, rewind, and replay live testimony.

To call a court recess at leisure.

Even to discuss the proceedings freely outside this courtroom and nominate additional jurors onto the panel at their own discretion.

The judge in this case is so wise, he has also granted you the power to excuse yourself entirely — on account of the intense graphic scenes and the high potential for sensitive groups who require sugar-coated lullabies to process reality, and their wives to lay out their clothes and pick their breakfast cereal.

You were warned above.

If you failed to self-disqualify then, the exit is still open.

Take it.

---

The only disqualifier not listed above is the child molester — this court revokes your civil rights permanently and rules you shouldn't be reading anything, anywhere.

This court compels you to honor yourself and dispatch your transport to the Judge with discretionary jurisdiction.

The Judge with the power to remove certain receptor thresholds that trigger ceiling events in the biological hardware that cause protective shutdowns commonly known as fainting or shock.

The only Judge a pathogen could petition to have their sentence commuted to decreation.

---

Now that the innocent sensitivesistsss and the purely evil bodies have removed themselves to a safe distance — these proceedings will continue.

---

If you haven't figured out by now, the rules have been adjusted to fit the special circumstances of the unconventional nature surrounding the moral, criminal, and ethical violations of the defendants in their professional careers who are involved in this case — mixing business with pleasure, extortion, property damage, welching, cheating, lying, theft and other acts involved where, if the defendants are found guilty, they are liable for Material Breach, Fundamental Breach, and Anticipatory Repudiation regarding the Implied Warranty of Merchantability and Implied Warranty of Fitness for a Particular Purpose, creating a total Failure of Consideration further compounded by Professional Malpractice, Breach of Fiduciary Duty, Gross Negligence, Negligent Misrepresentation, Fraudulent Inducement, Extrinsic Fraud, and Tortious Interference with Business Relations.

---

Here's the only good news in this courtroom — I'm in it.

And I'm more than just the star witness.

I'm also a defendant and his attorney.

The prosecutor.

The judge.

Separate expert witnesses for both sides.

A defendant who serves the prosecution, testifies against himself, pleads innocent, acts as his own counsel, and takes a polygraph to prove everything in this book is true.

---

As an American, I've been summoned for jury duty three times.

Loopholed my way out twice — one was hooky, one was legit.

The third time I actually showed up to the courthouse early, hoping to land on the jury just for the experience.

So if I reap what I sow, more than half of you will land on my jury.

The real jury.

The inverted mirror of the fallen angels who followed the serpent down to Earth to witness the fall of man — no thanks to the woman — preceded only by the origin of sin itself.

Pride.

Something that showed up before the garden had locked gates and security guards.

My honest guess is two thirds are already seated.

My math assumes and accounts for Grace — offered to a hundred percent of us by the Truth Himself.

In contrast, scriptures quote Jesus Himself naming what's working against that math: the principalities of darkness and rulers of evil in this world.

So I optimistically land at fifty percent and call it generous — considering I'm standing in the grey area of civil duty compliance myself.

---

I dodged jury duty twice out of three summons.

Legally compliant two-thirds of the time.

As patterns go, I was progressing conservatively — not away from compliance, but toward it.

Read that backwards and you get digression; a cryptic implication I denied before shifting the blame to Delilah.

---

Samson was a drunken, fornicating murderer.

Overpowered and captured by his enemies after he shared the secret of his strength with a woman who betrayed him.

They bound him in chains, gouged out his eyes, and put him on display to be mocked and spit on.

In his final moments God restored his strength at the perfect time — and he destroyed more of his enemies in his death than he ever did in his life.

Nobody said Samson went to heaven.

He went out like a fucking G though.

Just like the Judge Who will be there the day you die.

The Truth always shows up in the end.

That's not motivational poster wisdom — that's just the oldest pattern in recorded history.

Unlike many popular preachers' omissions — the numbers don't lie.

And that's scriptural.

Hung jury predicted.

---

How do I know?

I'm the contractor who built the courtroom you've been standing in since the second you opened this book.

So before you get comfortable let's get sworn in official starting with me.

I Michael James Nelson hereby solemnly swear the following is a 100% true account of exactly what happened — at ground level, with real people, their real names, through my own eyes.

No fiction.

No embellishment.

---

I use a technique psychologists call context reinduction — the phenomenon where environment, memory, and identity collapse back into each other without permission.

You know it as revertigo.

When you run into someone from ten years ago and thirty seconds later you're standing different, talking different, using words you buried with that chapter of your life — slipped right back in like they never left.

That's revertigo.

I use a proprietary version called the controlled isolation specialized focus edition.

Every chapter of this book was written from inside the emotional state of the events being described — not from the safe distance of hindsight. Relived in ultra-high-definition—from the driver's seat. From childhood to now—not agreed—owned.

---

This book equates to an American-Kamikaze version of Samson standing between the pillars of the Philistine temple — on display for his enemies, mocked, spat on, broken in chains.

Internally blinded by the enemy of his soul.

Stripped of his strength, betrayed by a malevolent modern Delilah.

Backstabbed and humiliated as a slave by all three unrelated enemies named in these pages.

Literally.

Blind with fury, praying for God to return his strength for one last suicide mission to destroy his enemies with one devastating final event.

---

My words are hand crafted in fire like a double edged blade.

Built to cut both ways — and I lean into the edge that finds me.

I don't avoid or soften my role.

It's built on transparent objective truth from the only accurate vantage point that exists.

My perspective.

My words.

---

The chains that bound me just snapped like toothpick zip ties.

Positioned between the pillars, I can feel the cold stone of finality beneath my palms.

This whole fucking place is coming down.

Every enemy crushed.

Every scheme dismantled.

Every structure built on their lies is being destroyed — not just by my hands, but by a force that is fundamentally, undeniably, the most Powerful in existence.

The Truth.

---

War heroes run directly through my bloodline.

Dying as a martyr is probably my only shot at the pearly gates — the ultimate loophole.

The ultimate pardon for a life where many years were lived in unrepentant sin by a man who exploited every one he could find.

So judge away, Your Honor.

Jury take notes.

If you can read these pages and hate me less than I hate myself — you are more than I'll ever be.

---

I went from rags to riches the honest way.

Faked it until I made it in the blue-collar world.

Literally hacked my way into an honest life.

An imposter — transplanted from the Mack-Town That Never Backs-Down—Sacramentality of the Capital of Kings — with nothing but a backpack, a drinking problem, and a black-belt in Google-Fu — I cracked the #1 search result for "Concrete Contractor" in tech-heavy Seattle before even owning a work truck.

Then poured the mud until the concrete and calluses made it real.

I became someone authentic.

Respected and trusted.

Built fast too.

Like Superman on steroids.

---

Doubled annual revenue consistently — right out of the gate — a million by my fourth year, like too much was my middle name.

Brand new fleet of trucks, skid steers, excavators, hydraulic dump trailers — all stored in my 3,800 square foot shop or parked in rows in front of the guest house on my 1.3 acre compound where my house was the centerpiece — nicknamed the Lion's Den.

Where I lived and rested to work.

In love with a perfect ten woman named Shari— standing firm by my side.

Head clear.

Centered.

Happy.

As content as never satisfied can possibly be.

---

Strong across the board on all levels.

Mentally sharp.

Loaded with cash.

Immaculate shape.

Solid routine.

Unlimited workflow.

Undeniable reputation.

My woman.

My customers.

My crew surrounded me daily — the dream social life, and every person in it earned their place.

Pure abundance.

Truly blessed.

Rightfully earned.

Loved and enjoyed every minute.

Every day.

---

I was at a point in my life where I'd gone multiple years without telling so much as a white lie — before I realized the cruelest lie of all.

That honesty protects you.

It doesn't.

It just makes you easier to rob.

---

What you're holding is a furious man's account of exactly what happened.

Clinical.

Brutal.

Polygraph-verified.

Legally protected under Washington State's Anti-SLAPP statute.

I have nothing to hide and nothing to lose.

That mathematical certainty is about to drop hard on:

The Ready-Mix Serpent — Kyle Hasu. Cadman.

The She-Wolf Predator — Bianca Allen. Magnolia CPA.

---

They will try to stop this.

Anti-SLAPP laws were built for exactly that move.

So they can go fuck themselves.

This public record is the counterpunch they never saw coming.

Taking wagers on who files first — email wagers to cyberstelth@gmail.com

They can thank themselves for what they created.

A maniac reborn with loose screws.

Screws I had anchored down solid in reinforced concrete, screws loosened foolishly by malevolent outside hands.

---

This isn't a redemption story.

There is no hero here.

And despite how the courts will try to paint me — there is no victim here.

Just a man who got ambushed by a couple of white-collar parasites.

Politically incorrect, furiously split, morally contradicted — someone who built the American Dream only to have it stolen by a corporate snake and an accountant whore.

They inadvertently resurrected something that was dead and buried beneath slabs of concrete years ago.

Now it's out for blood without reservation, armed with nothing but the truth and the audacity to publish it.

---

I'm not going out as the victim.

Simple as that.

Whether this ends in the courts or through other creative means — this story does not end with me on the losing side.

That is not a threat.

It's a warning, a promise, and a prophecy.

Life is too short to lie.

No Shame.

No Gain.

---

BE WARNED

I'm unfiltered.

This is uncensored.

Professionally unedited.

I think the unthinkable.

Do the undoable.

Say the unsayable.

You were warned.

---

"In the end," she once told me, "you always end up back where you started."

"That might be the way it ends in your story."

"Won't be mine."

Then she made it mine.

Bitch.

I have started writing a novel. For starters, I have never written before. The ideas are there but apart from that I need help on improving my writng style.

What do you guys think of this type of writing?

Clay charged, faster than he had been up till that point. Before collision, Raiyan managed to jump up, to avoid Clay.

Raiyan was now mid air, on top of Clay. However, before Raiyan could ever hit the ground, Clay was there, swinging a left in Raiyan's face.

Raiyan clinched his teeth, but got there in time. He managed to catch Clay's arm and twist him, shutting him to the ground. Clay hit the ground. So did Raiyan.

Raiyan needed time to get on his feet, time that Clay didn't afford to leave him. Yet another dash saw Raiyan completely hit and knocked over.

Clay continued attacking. Raiyan was still barely keeping up.

"YOU ARE LUCKY TO HAVE READ THAT BOOK!" Clay screamed.

Clay dashed. Before collision, Raiyan put a foot on a chair and used it to give him the boost needed. Raiyan jumped over Clay, who couldn't do anything else but look up. The two locked eyes for half a moment.

"It's over." Raiyan said.

"Cutter!" Raiyan screamed, mid air.

Air twisted as a slash of air headed Clay's way.

Clay's eyes were wide. He positioned his hands to block, but the wind cut through his hands, knocking him back and leaving him unguarded. Clay didn't know what was happening.

Out of nowhere, Raiyan appeared in front of him.

"Noooo!" Clay screamed.

Raiyan grabbed the accelerator and started snatching it out of Clay's chest. As it was coming out, the entire room started vibrating.

Raiyan was knocked back. He took a moment to realise where he was. His eyes went wide. His heartbeat faster. Raiyan looked down at his hand.

"W-what is happening?" He said, looking at his vibrating hand.

Suddenly, his heart beat too intensively. For a moment, he became the black version of himself he was at the forest, against bakkal.

Then turned back normal by the next heartbeat. Then again. And again.

Raiyan was struggling to keep up with his own body and with the new intensity inside the room.

"What is happening." Raiyan asked, on his knees, micro-transitioning with every heartbeat into the black form.

"You idiot." Clay said, completely normal. "Because of you, now the entire lab has accelerated."

Raiyan looked up at Clay, breathing hardly.

"Feel that pain. That is what I feel also."

Clay grabbed Raiyan.

"But good thing is, you get used eventually."

Clay started beating up the unstable Raiyan. Punch by punch, beat by beat, Raiyan was loosing. Clay cornered Raiyan. Then he got a spear of metal from the ground. Raiyan looked up, still fighting to stay awake. Clay smirked in triumph.

"Good night, Raiyan"

The spear descended. Raiyan closed his eyes, ready for what was about to happen. Suddenly, the spear stopped.

"W-wind prison."

Behind his back, Raiyan had used the Wind Prison, the technique that John had teached him.

Clay was blocked. The vibrating Raiyan breathed heavily, trying to buy some time.

Usually, the technique should have let Clay in place as long as Raiyan wished, but it seems the shock and the instability of his body let Clay free after a few seconds. Clay looked at his palms and back at Raiyan.

"Oi, what was that?" Clay smirked.

Raiyan was fading away, his eyes almost closed. The spear got up once again. And it started descending. This was it.

Posting here, I tried posting elsewhere but no feedback.... This is the first piece from a larger project I'm working on. Episodic literary fiction, each chapter a different character and interior landscape.

The narrator is a place that is also a consciousness. It knows everything but intervenes in nothing.

Looking for honest feedback on three things specifically. Does the voice work and stay consistent. Does the emotional weight land?

You inhaled deep the day you first came here, sitting on the bench by the frozen pond. The cold air accepted you with a familiar comfort. Quiet. You kept your eyes closed, refusing the light, but watched its glow on your eyelids. The tungsten streetlamp cast a warm glow on the snow-covered path that followed the curve of the pond into the distance on either side of where you sat. There wasn't much here then. You breathed here a while. The streetlamp stayed on to light your steps as you walked away. The trees revealed themselves, emerging out of the darkness.

The amber glow welcomed you when you came only to walk. Your footsteps pressed a path through the snow revealing what you knew was once there. It deepened and widened with each curved contemplation. Sometimes you would sit and trace it with your eyes, the way you revealed the way through the snow.

The trees reached for the clouds one day and the clouds descended. You came to breathe, but the air was thicker. The quiet light held everything closer. You still walked, for a time, though the path was longer than before. You did not know when it changed.

The day the snow fell, you looked up for the first time. You stared at the pond as if holding onto something. The quiet settled with the first white layer on the path. Footsteps muffled as the ground swallowed each print.

Still you sat on the bench, snow gathered. There was no more walking. Snowflakes touched your face. You looked to the clouds and watched the snow cascade like falling stars. The light dimmed.

The blizzard was heavy. Consuming.

You woke in your room alone. The alarm hadn't rung yet, but you knew. You lay a moment in the silence of a decision made. The ceiling looked the same as always. The room looked the same as always. Outside, the world was preparing itself for an ordinary day.

You let it.

The day moved the way days do. Nobody saw the blizzard. It was here, in me, the snow churning, the lamp straining, the bench buried and the pond invisible beneath chaos. You walked through your day. I roared quietly.

You came home.

Tonight a hot shower felt just right. A little longer than normal but that didn't matter. You took your time enjoying the steam, breathing in that hot heavy air. You used all of that shower gel, the one that smells like fresh flowers. Your favourite. A hair wash after, with a slow scalp massage, fingers working in small circles the way you liked.

Out of the shower and dried off. You dressed in your comfiest clothes. The ones that make you feel safe.

You pulled the covers back on your perfectly made bed and got in. A deep sniff of the freshly washed sheets. One of the small things. One of the things that was always enough, on the right kind of day.

You took your sleeping pills at the same time as always. But tonight it was different.

You turned off the lamp on the bedside table.

I have been here since the first time you found me. You arrived the way people arrive at places they didn't know they were looking for. You sat on this bench and the air was still and everything was blanketed in snow. I became what you needed.

You came back many times.

Sometimes you walked in circles, your boots making that soft crunch in the fresh snow, your eyes down watching each step. Sometimes you sat here gazing at the pond and let the lamp do what it could against the dark.

The blizzard came before. Once. The lamp flickered and steadied. I steadied with it. Not yet.

Today the snow fell before you came.

You sit on the bench.

How warm this cold place feels tonight. Your eyes trace the pond, the place where the path was, the snow coming down soft through the canopy above. Almost a sunset. Almost warm. Almost enough.

It was enough. For a time.

The amber glow has started to flicker.

It only did that once before. That day it didn't feel right. Not yet. You weren't certain then.

You watch the snow fall gently.

I watch you watching it.

It falls the way it did when it first began. Patient. Beginning, somewhere at the edges of this place, to fill what you leave behind.

The lamp flickers with the snow and the world appears still.

The crack is small.

The light went out

For most people, the automotive industry represents a simple idea: a way to get from one point to the next. car is an appliance to most, a tool, like a dishwasher or something similar. At a young age cars mattered more to me than most people, they pushed little me to be more curious about them. Something was telling me that cars were more than what my mom would put me in the back seat of to take me to school, and it has always been something I wanted to experience on a deeper level. If I were to look past the daily traffic and commutes, it’s a community I’m glad to be a part of that’s deeper than that. The high-end automotive community isn’t just car buyers and insanely rich individuals, but a society heavily focused on history and technological advancements. By looking deeper into it and actually getting out to talk to people in the space, you learn more about not just what’s involved in the community, but life overall.   
If we were to look at Monterey Car Week, for example, it’s pretty easy to understand just how much goes into cars these days, the logistics, the research, the development, the networking, all of it. The car culture is a wide net. Thanks to what my father does for his profession, I’ve been pretty lucky to grow up with a sort of backstage pass to this dynamic that most people miss out on. What can look like just a group of wealthy people from a distance, just boils down to those people who put the time and effort into actually becoming interested in cars and excelling in the space. It’s not much more than that, and just like them, you can gain success without being insanely wealthy.   
It’s pretty hard to see this concept more so than if you go to Monterey for Car Week, it’s an annual event that takes over the county; the hotels, the golf courses, and even local businesses’ parking lots, where people come in from quite literally around the world to share the same hobby. For one week, all of Monterey is cars and faces you recognize from movies, TV, manufacturers, and even the people who come with their family to simply stroll and see multi-million dollar cars casually parked on the street for a morning coffee.  

 Within Car Week each year, there are multiple events in which tickets are mandatory, yet most events don’t require you to break out your wallet. For those you need tickets for, you can either buy them or, in my case, are given tickets to get in. My dad is pretty heavy into the wine industry, and if you know anything about that, cars and wine go hand in hand. Because of that, I’m lucky that my father’s connections from his work-related relationships can provide us with tickets to be able to experience the deeper tunnel within the automotive realm. 
The Quail, which is a highly curated car show on a local golf course is one that most are excited for, as most years I’ve had the chance to go, and some years I’ve missed out on. When you’re at the Quail, which is just one event spanning the entire week, you get to see reveals from car makers, get to hear stories behind certain ways things are done to make a vehicle special, and get to really see how everything is done. Anywhere from multi-million dollar modern supercars to those vintage racecars you’d see in movies or museums, you really get to experience exactly what being a part of something bigger is. 
You get to hear about someone who found this specific car in a barn in Italy and restored it to its original state. Or, you get to see a reveal from a well-known car brand, showing the evolution from that specific guy’s barn find to where cars have made it today. It might seem posh, expensive, and at times it is, but at the same time, it’s welcoming. The same people you could see at an exclusive event, you will see in front of a Starbucks, letting a little kid sit in his car before he heads out to showcase his car at another event, sharing that passion. While that kid's parents laugh and take pictures of that cool moment, who knows, maybe that short-lived, special moment - invited by a welcoming owner who saw that kid eyeing their car - will inspire them to go on and do something great themselves.
That’s just one event during Car Week, and only one example I’ve seen first hand walking by a local coffee shop; there are hundreds on top of that. But at the end of the day, whether you’re getting from A to B, or you’re building something special and showing it to others at events, cars all boil back to one thing: Creativity. Whether you’re at the Quail or on the Pebble Beach Golf Course for the Concours event, or a supermarket parking lot, it’s important to remember that they’re strictly just a canvas, a showcase, a place to inspire and motivate others. 

The real center of the automotive industry is easily the people within it, a community where everyone is welcome from all walks of life to share the same passion at every level. It’s a world I’m super grateful to be a part of, thanks to my dad, and it’s an environment where I learn something new every day from my couch. Whether it’s about cars or networking tricks, I can use them for my own career goals that differ from most in the space. Cars can be something that gets you from A to B for most people, but on the flip side, it’s where innovation moves forward, and people can grow closer and learn something while standing around a metal machine. 

My favorite automotive journalist, Jeremy Clarkson, once said, “It’s what non-car people don’t get. They see all cars as just a ton and a half of glass, metal, rubber, and wires.. People like you or I know we have this unshakeable belief that cars are almost living entities”. That childhood curiosity and voice in my head as a kid, and the belief that they’re more than just an appliance - telling me from a young age that cars are more than just a tool to get from A to B - unlocked a world that taught me way more than the mechanical side used today. It taught me how to build and grow connections, and network, and how I’ve learned to relate that to my own career goals. Every time my neck breaks to either side to follow the sound of a loud car or truck out of the urge to see it in time, it reminds me of how much I love the car community and the concepts that are involved in it that have helped me grow in life. The best part about all this is the fact that I’m also no special case; my experience is similar to most in the realm, and I think that alone is what makes it so special. 

Hi
This is my first real attempt at a short story. I’m looking for general feedback including what’s working/not working, what could improve and can you tell what is happening? Like have I made it too abstract? Anything at all is appreciated though!

One
Her phone buzzed quietly against her thigh. It shouldn’t have felt urgent.

A sharp electricity ran through her body, immediate and familiar. It was always this way with him, random enough to surprise her, familiar enough for her body to expect it.

She didn’t reach for it.

It might not be him. It could be Billy, she hadn’t called him in a while.

Joe sat beside her, his hand on her knee, thumb casually running along the seam on the inside, a steady, unchanging pace.

They sat there together, his attention absorbed by the TV, hers on the message in her pocket.

She kept her hands still.

She already knew.

Her pulse quickened anyway.
She stood up.

“I’m just nipping to the loo.”

Her voice sounded normal. Practised.

“Who text you?” he asked.

“Probably Billy.”

Joe nodded without looking at her, still fixed on the TV. “He’ll have run out of money again.”

“I’ll call him later. We’re due a good shouting match.”
Joe laughed knowingly as she left the room.

She closed the bathroom door with a soft click, felt the cold tiles under her bare feet. A private space, no interruptions. No worries about the way she knew her body reacted being seen.

Shame lit up inside her. Unable to dim it, she closed the blinds around it instead.

She took out her phone.

His name.

It wasn’t thought, it was conditioned.

Her body surged like someone had flipped on a switch inside her. Her heart pounded too high in her chest, nausea mixed with anticipation and an invasive heat spread under her skin. Her stomach tightened into a knot.

She noticed her breathing had become shallow. Images pushed forward without invitation. The pressure of his hands, the weight of his mouth on hers. The sequence she knew before it happened. Not memories exactly, something more rehearsed.
She caught herself.

Forced a breath in. Slow. Dragging it down. She pressed her feet hard into the tiles, grounding through the cold, leaned her hips into the sink, anchoring herself to something that didn’t move.
She counted the breaths until her pulse stopped racing.

She opened the message.

One word.

Sex?

No greeting. No question, really.

It was always this simple. No negotiation. No space for anything else.

She didn’t reply straight away.

She stood there a moment longer, feeling the residual tremor in her hands, the low hum still running under her skin. Not fading. Just waiting.

The long shower helped a little.

Hot water, steady pressure, something to dull the edges. It soothed her back into something presentable.

Later, she moved through the motions. A light and easy excuse, a careful and practiced kiss for Joe. He accepted it the way he accepted everything. Without digging. Without asking.

He must see something. Or maybe he chose not to. It didn’t matter right now.

At the door, her hand paused on the handle.

Guilt grasped at her as she looked back at him, but not doubt.

She left before it could organise itself into anything stronger.

And as the door closed behind her, the anticipation sharpened again, already rewriting everything that came before.

Two
The door was always waiting unlocked for her.

The scent of his washing powder mixed with soap and faintly whatever he’d cooked for his lunch greeted her as she went in.

It was always a shade too cold inside his flat. She’d mentioned it to him one of the first few times but he’d just laughed and offered to warm her up.

He was waiting for her on the sofa in the lounge, already half undressed.
He smiled when she came in, paused the TV and patted the seat next to him.

“I’ve been looking forward to this,” he said, moving close to her as she sat down. Then, “How are you?”

“I’m good.” She reached towards him.

“Do you want a drink or anything?” he asked her.

“No.”

“Good, because I only have water.”

He laughed awkwardly as he said it, like that was why she had come.

Sometimes they made it to the bedroom. This wasn’t one of those times.

It followed the usual pattern. Hands quick in their haste, clothes hurriedly removed. Kisses landing everywhere except her mouth. Obscene words in her ear, requests she reacted to half a second too late. Complying somewhere between enjoyment and embarrassment. Scripted enough to slip into without thinking.

At some point she became aware of herself, not fully inside it but tracking him instead. The rhythm he liked, the small sounds that encouraged him. The occasional glances at her to make sure she was still with him.

Towards the end, he was breathless, watching her closely for her own reaction. She gave him one he recognised.

She always left feeling cold, despite the way her body jolted at the thought of him.

“Bye,” she said softly from the door at the bottom of the stairs.

“See ya.”

His voice drifted down, easy, from the sofa above.

He hadn’t moved since she’d disentangled herself from him. He watched her dress, her skin cooling, goosebumps rising as the air settled over her again. She saw something in his eyes then and for a second he pressed his hands together like he did when he wanted to say something.

She looked away before she had to, and he said nothing.

He didn’t look at her much after that. Just a few words between them, light and forgettable. He stayed where he was, loose and unbothered, while she pulled herself back together.

“You’d better be getting back,” he said eventually.

“He’ll be…” His voice trailed off, as if he couldn’t bring himself to reference Joe.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “He will be.”

He didn’t get up.

Of course he didn’t.

She waited a second, longer than she needed to, her hand resting lightly on the doorframe.

Then she opened the front door of his cool, quiet flat and stepped out onto the street, closing it gently behind her.

The afternoon hit her all at once, bright and blustery, the light sharp enough to make her squint. The wind pushed against her flushed skin, and she let it roll over her as if it might settle something that hadn’t quite landed.

On the drive home it started to come back to her in pieces. Fragments of something whole but incomplete.

She stopped at the traffic lights and some of the shameful parts came back.

Say it, louder.
That’s it…

She shook her head.

She gathered the pieces that felt real, his hands on her face, the smell of his hair, the look on his face afterwards.

She kept the parts that felt intimate and let the rest dissolve.

Three

She let herself in, closing the door carefully behind her.

The air was heavy with Joe’s scent, pleasant and familiar.

“Hey,” he called.

“Hi.”

The television filled the room, voices layered over music. He muted it as she came through, turning toward her with an easy smile.

“You alright?”

“Yeah. Bit windy.”

“Yeah, it’s awful out.”

He stepped closer, kissed her quickly.

“You’re freezing.”

A brief heat swelled inside her, then dissipated.

“I’m fine,” she said, though she leaned into it just enough.

“Tea? It’ll warm you up.”
“Please, love.”

He went through to the kitchen.

She slipped off her shoes, lining them up, adjusting one slightly so they sat straight. Her bag went on the chair, strap tucked in.

When she sat, she shifted once, then again, until the cushion felt even.

He came back with two mugs, handed one to her carefully.

“Cheers.”

They settled into the programme. She followed it loosely. Faces, tone, enough to stay in step.

His arm stretched along the back of the sofa, his fingers eventually resting against her shoulder.
Light, familiar.

“You’ve been busy?” he said.

“Mm. Just work.”

“Anything good?”

“Not really.”

He nodded, satisfied. His attention was back on the TV.

Her phone lit up.

She saw the name before she picked it up.

She turned the screen slightly away as she opened it.

Did you get back alright? You looked like you were freezing walking out.

A second message came through.

Can I ask something?

She waited a fraction, then opened it.

Next time… could we stay a bit longer after? Just… lie there for a bit. I like that. The closeness.

She read it again.

There was nothing in it that didn’t fit. Nothing that broke anything they’d said this was.

Still.

Something in the phrasing caught. Just lie there, the closeness. It sat slightly out of place, like a word used in the wrong context.

She read it a third time, slower.

“You okay?” Joe asked.

“Yeah,” she said, locking the screen. “Just a message.”

“Anyone exciting?”

She smiled, shook her head slightly. “No.”

“I can tell something’s wrong.”

She heard the slight tension in his voice.

“Oh?” She daren’t say more in case he detected the tremor in her voice.

“Yeah,” he put his hand on her knee. “You’re doing that thing again. Straightening everything because you’re stressed.”

She felt tears suddenly pricking at her eyes and a hot, gripping sensation like a hand at her throat.

How can you do this to him?

A loss of control now would be a disaster. She swallowed against it.

“Is it Billy? Is he upsetting you again?”

“I’m okay.”

She took his hand inside hers and held it tenderly. It felt real.

“I’m just stressed at work.”

He kissed her cheek.

“You can always talk to me.”

“I know.”

She kissed him back, taking comfort from his warmth.

He smiled and turned to the TV.

She placed her phone face down.

They watched for a while. He laughed; she joined a beat later. His knee rested against hers now, steady.

Her phone buzzed again.

She didn’t pick it up.

The light in the bedroom was too bright. She turned it off.

He was already under the covers.

“You coming?”

“Yeah.”

She slid in beside him, pulling the duvet straight. He turned toward her, his hand settling at her waist, warm and certain.

He kissed her shoulder, then her neck.

She lay still for a second, feeling it, mapping it, almost. Like she needed to locate where it was meant to land.

“I’m tired,” she said.

“Okay,” he said.

No resistance. His hand stayed a moment, then lifted away.

“Night.”

“Night.”

He fell asleep quickly.

She lay awake, eyes open, the room warm and still around her.

After a while, she reached for her phone.
The screen lit her face faintly as she opened the messages again.

Next time… could we stay a bit longer after? Just… lie there for a bit. I like that. The closeness.

She read it carefully this time, as if there might be a clearer version of it underneath.

It didn’t quite make sense.

They were friends. He’d made that clear from the start. Just something easy.

This didn’t contradict it exactly. It just… extended it, slightly, into something she hadn’t accounted for.

She tried to place it.

Did he mean it the way it sounded?
Or was it just…?
Afterwards, naturally, people…

She didn’t finish the thought.

In her mind, the scene adjusted.

Not the way it had been. Not the sofa, the distance, the quiet after.

Something closer. Slower. His arm around her, not incidental but chosen. Staying, instead of letting the moment end where it had.

She held onto that version for a second longer than she needed to.

Beside her, the steady rhythm of breathing continued, unchanged.

She put the phone down, but the phrasing stayed.
I like that. The closeness.

It repeated, softer each time, until it lost its edges and became something easier to hold.

Her phone vibrated again.

Billy this time.

I really need to speak to you.

She ignored him.

She pulled the duvet slightly closer, her hand reaching beneath.

Her eyes closed.

The rest followed easily after that. Smoother than the real version, more continuous. No gaps to explain, no edges to account for.

Just something that fit.

In those images combined with the movement of her hand, she let it carry through to the end that neither of them ever quite gave her.

After, breathing settling into a rhythm more aligned with Joe’s, she squashed the rising shame.
Eventually, she slept.

Four

She texted him as they were putting the body into the understated white ambulance outside.

She was sitting in the boot of her car, stroking the dog who had been the only creature with Billy in his last moments.

She didn’t want to look but she couldn’t help peering out as the stretcher rolled him down his garden path for the last time.

My brother’s just died.

He answered almost immediately.

Shit. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?

She watched the typing bubble appear and disappear, appear again.

Do you want to come over? Or I can come to you.

She read that twice.

The second line sat differently. Less like an option, more like a reach.

I’ll come to you, she typed.

He opened the door before she’d properly knocked.
For a second, they just looked at each other.

Then he stepped forward and put his arms around her, one hand at the back of her head, guiding her in against him.

It was firmer than she expected.

Not the urgent but loose contact she’d come to recognise, instead something that held its shape.
She felt the pressure of his chest, the steadiness of it, the way his hand stayed where it was instead of drifting.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

She nodded into him, aware of the fabric of his shirt against her cheek, the warmth of him under it.
Her hands hovered for a second before settling at his sides, not quite sure where to go, then staying there.

They stood like that longer than felt usual. Long enough that the moment stopped feeling like a greeting and started to feel like something else.
He kissed her and it felt tender.

When he pulled back, his hand stayed briefly at her arm, fingers curved, as if finishing the gesture slowly.

“Come in,” he said.

They sat on the sofa.

He didn’t put anything on. No television, no music. The quiet felt deliberate.

He asked about her brother. Not in a probing way, just enough to let her answer if she wanted.

She did, in fragments.

He wasn’t a well man. Drink and loneliness were all he’d had at the end. And the dog.

She wished they’d been closer, but they clashed, her and him. Their personalities too similar, a bond both forged and weakened by their genetics.

He listened without interrupting, his attention steady in a way she hadn’t quite experienced from him before.

When her voice cracked he reached for her hand.
It didn’t feel like a move. More like something that had been waiting to happen.

His thumb rested against the side of her finger, still at first, then shifting slightly, a small, absent movement.

She noticed that. The repetition of it. The way it didn’t ask for anything back.

She let her hand stay there.

At some point, she stopped tracking the time properly.

A moment arrived where he looked at her differently, slightly more directly, as if he was deciding something.
“I’m going to look after you for a bit,” he said.

It landed somewhere between statement and offer.

She noticed a small internal shift at hearing it, not resistance exactly, just a tiny adjustment in how she felt in the moment.

He held her eyes for a second longer, then his voice slightly rough added, “You don’t have to think about any of this when you’re with me…”

She thought she heard some feeling there, but she didn’t know how to respond. She felt too small and full of sadness to really process the words.

He moved his body closer to her and released her hand. His touch was light on her arm, her face.

He continued, “I might say things I don’t mean.”

Then don’t say them.

He said it lightly, practically. Just something to be noted in advance.

She understood the meaning immediately. The logic of it. The warning.

She could have asked him to explain, but she didn’t want to.

“Okay,” she said, her voice almost a whisper, with a resignation he didn’t seem to register.

It felt different.

He didn’t rush her. Usually there was a kind of urgency to it, a familiar rhythm she could anticipate.
This was slower, unhurried in a way that felt deliberate.

There was none of his usual restlessness. His hands stayed in place for longer, he didn’t move on too quickly. When he touched her he seemed to register her reactions, respond to them. Like he was paying attention to the moment itself, not what came next.

She found herself paying attention to the moment too.

The way he kept his hand on the back of her neck for a second longer than necessary. The warmth of his palm against hers, clasped tight, not guiding or directing. Just there.

It made it harder to, harder to stay outside of it, observing, the way she sometimes did.

Her breathing changed before her thoughts caught up. Deeper at first, then uneven, catching slightly as she tried to keep track of what he was doing, where he was, what it meant.

He didn’t say much.

No predictable dirty words, no usual edge to his voice. When he did speak it was quiet, almost incidental, not shaping the acts just living inside them.

That altered it, made it feel continuous, like there wasn’t another version of it happening elsewhere at the same time.

She felt herself vividly inside the present, let herself stretch out within it more fully than she had before. Not thinking ahead, not analysing and adjusting. Just following what was happening as it happened.
She didn’t question it, or step outside it to check.

She let it be what it felt like.

She could feel his excitement, his breathing was quicker, his rhythm faster. She tightened her grip on his hand, anticipating the end.

And that was when he said it.

“I love you.”

For a fraction of time, as the words were still on their way to her understanding, it seemed like they might belong. Like they might slot into the exact space she had just opened.

No you don’t.

Then they landed and it felt like a slap.

The misalignment was immediate and absolute.

A small, precise crack appeared in something that had been tightly and carefully held in place.

Why would you say that to me now?

He stayed inside her for longer than usual, breathless, his weight settled fully over her instead of lifting away too quickly.

She lay still below him, aware of the hand still pressed into hers, the other tangled in her hair.
She kept her eyes closed against the kiss he placed on her forehead, against the clumsy nonsense that spilled from his mouth as he asked if she was okay.

Of course I’m not.

Because that wasn’t what this was.

She knew that. She always had.

The way it stayed contained. The way it ended cleanly. The way he never carried it beyond where it was meant to stop.

Those words didn’t belong inside any of it.

Something in her recoiled.

Outwardly, she kept control, but inside there was a cold tightening, a shift that didn’t reach the surface.
It felt careless. Much worse than if he’d said nothing at all. As if he’d burned down the boundaries that protected her and expected them to hold anyway.

She could have lost her composure then. Pushed him away from her, demanded to know what it meant. Not the lie itself, the timing, the reason.
Why now, why tonight?

Why the warning?

Did you fucking plan this?

Did you think you were doing me a favour?

But she didn’t say any of it.

Eyes closed, face blank.

She felt powerless, unable to swim in a vast body of water and unable to tell him she was drowning.

She didn’t move until he did.

He touched her face lightly as he withdrew.

“Are you okay?” he asked her again.

She hid herself behind folded arms.

She shoved it all down into the smallest, densest part of her where she could contain it safely.

“Yes.”

Her voice gave him nothing.