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“It all sounds great,” I tell her honestly. “Don’t worry about anything. This is… nice of you.”

She fully spins around to face me, a spatula in her hand. She points it in my direction, very matter-of-factly.

“We don’t have to talk or do anything you don’t want to do. I can leave as soon as this is all done.” She lifts her wrist which contains her smart watch. “The muffins need four more minutes. I’m just about done with this.” The spatula is used to wave a circle around my stove, gesturing to her work there. “I’ll wash the dishes too, of course. Then I can be out of your hair.”

I’m speechless. Who knew that was possible? I blink a few times, hoping to reset my brain function.

“You can stay and eat the food you made.”

“Only if you’re sure that’s okay.”

A nagging voice in the back of head says it shouldn’t be. I should have learned enough from past experiences to say no, to stand to my ground, or to demand better.

But something about her demeanor, standing in my kitchen and making me breakfast makes me think I might not have to demand anything.

We sit in silence as we eat. I spend most of the time watching her as she avoids eye contact with me. She looks as nervous as I am, but I’m having a hard time knowing if I’m just seeing what I want to see. Because I want to see someone who’s thinking up an explanation for why she ran out of my life so fucking fast, and took my heart with her. I want to see someone who really is going to do anything she can to make it better, like she said she would last night.

Wishful thinking is the worst.

The muffins are amazing. It’s obvious she followed the recipe well. The bacon is a little undercooked for my liking, and theeggs don’t have a drop of seasoning on them. Not that I’m going to complain. The most I’ve seen her eat in the morning is a power bar, or a cup of yogurt. Unless I cooked for her obviously. I did that a lot in the couple weeks before the breakup. I liked watching her go from someone that was too cool to react to such a kindness, to someone that moaned every time she took her first bite. Sometimes it was an appreciative nod in my direction, her hand covering her mouth so I couldn’t see what a mess she was making as she devoured every last crumb.

“How is it?” she asks quietly.

A warm, hopeful feeling floods through me when our eyes meet.

“It was good,” I say. Not exactly a lie.

“Now give me the honest answer,” she pushes.

I can’t help the stupid smile that ends up on my face.

“I wouldn’t have eaten it if you’d done a terrible job.” Her raised brows force me to continue. “Your cooking skills could use some work, but it wasn’t terrible.”

“Maybe tomorrow you can help me.”

I don’t know what to say to that, because what reason do I have for committing to doing this again? I haven’t been given one yet. At least not a good one that comes from somewhere other than the feelings I fear I’ll always have for her.

I must somehow have forgotten how well she knows me, because she reads most of my doubt on my face.

“I love you, Reya. I’m not going to dance around it, or pretend I’m too cold to have emotions. I won’t pressure you to do anything you don’t want, I just thought… I thought maybe we could start small. I want to–” She stops to huff out a breath. “Me from a few months ago wouldn’t recognize me today, because all I want to do is make you smile. It’s all consuming. When you picked me up yesterday, ithurtso bad to know I wasn’t going toget one. That you could be so close, and look so crushed, and that there was nothing I could do—“

“But there was,” I interrupt. “Something you could’ve done. There was.”

“Was there? You barely let me in last night. Would a few hours earlier have made a difference?” She looks down at her plate, mostly empty now. “You smiled when you sat down, and that was the best I’ve felt since…”

Since she abruptly left me, without thinking about how that would affect me.

I stand from my seat.

“It would have. I’ve had a horrible few weeks, but something about watching you walk up those stairs after getting out of my car… it felt like the final nail in the coffin. I was literally crying my eyes out, trying to figure out the best path forward to move on. I was going to give Tim my thirty days’ notice. I was going to call my mom and see if we could clear out my old bedroom.”

Her eyes are glistening with unshed tears, but I’m not the reason they’re really there. This is on her, all of it. The words coming out of my mouth are the result of what she did to me.

“I want so badly to make it all up to you, if that’s even possible. I never wanted to hurt you like that.”

I can see the sincerity behind her words. She thinks she means it. She thinks she wants to move forward.

“You did want to, or you wouldn’t have. Sure, maybe you’ve changed your mind, but don’t tell me you didn’t want to hurt me. You knew what you were doing.”