Page 13

Kairi

I knew accepting Ashlen’s invitation to her baby shower was a mistake the moment I walked into the overly decorated ballroom, drowning in gold, pastels, and cheap sentiment. She had always been gaudy, but this was overkill.

I’d spoken to her and her friends and was glad when she left me alone. She had dyed her hair blonde and refashioned herself as some kind of modern-day trad wife, so she had new friends. I didn’t want to be there, but I’d missed her wedding, so I felt guilty and pressured.

She had plastered my name and childhood pics of us all over her social media, making my appearance mandatory—my agent said so. Suddenly, I was her best friend again because my first book, Heaven on His Shoulder, had climbed the bestseller lists.

The one saving grace was that it was an all-women event. I wouldn’t have to see Atlas. It had been two years since he’d shown up at my apartment. I still couldn’t believe his audacity. He had chosen Ashlen—why was he so pressed about me?

I had promised Ashlen a few hours, and I felt like they were up. The noise was fraying my nerves. Random strangers wanting to talk about what I should have put in my book were fraying my nerves. It was time to go. After I used the restroom. I’d drunk a lot of champagne. It was six. My flight back to New York was at ten. I had time to stop by my father’s. After he gave me my mother’s insurance and sent me on my way, I decided I wouldn’t let him push me away anymore. I started calling him daily, checking in. Making him talk to me. I visited. We’d rebuilt our relationship from the ground up.

He’d met a woman a few months ago. Mrs. Shirley. He was happy again now.

Ducking my head, I was able to slip out of the ballroom unnoticed. I headed to the restroom.

When I came out of the stall, he was waiting for me.

Atlas was leaning against the wall next to the door, his suit wrinkled, his tie hanging loose, his eyes glazed. He was obviously drunk. He liked whiskey, and I could smell it on him from twenty feet away. The look in his eyes made my bones ache.

“For you to show up here... You’re just torturing me now,” he muttered, his voice low and rough. He pushed off the wall, closing the distance between us in a few quick strides.

I narrowed my eyes, standing my ground. “What the fuck are you doing in here?” I tried to make my voice sound firm, though I was shaken. I hadn’t prepared myself for him being here.

“I read the book, Kairi,” he said, stepping closer. “It wrecked me.”

“Okay, sounds like a personal problem.”

“It’s about me.”

He was right. At first, I didn’t realize I was writing about him. When I did, I leaned into it. It was a release. A purge for me. For him, it was a punishment. I knew he’d read it. I wrote the perfect happily ever after, including everything he said he wanted from me. I gave him the fantasy, but denied him the reality.

“That first day we met... the party... it’s all in there. Nearly word for word.”

“It’s fiction.” I would take it to my grave that it wasn’t.

“No,” he said. “It’s a confession.”

I rolled my eyes and turned toward the sink. “Everything’s about you, huh?”

His laugh was hollow. “Isn’t it?”

“Congratulations on the baby. What are you naming them? Regret?” I was being petty.

He frowned, shaking his head now. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m serious. What’s their name gonna be, Atlas? Broken Promise? Emotional Damage?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he moved faster than I could react, his hands gripping my hips. He lifted me onto the sink. The hard edge of the porcelain bit into my thighs, but the pain barely registered because, in the next breath, I heard the ripping sound of my panties being torn away.

He pushed my legs open.

I was wearing a mid-thigh evening dress; he didn’t even have to move it—it rode my waist.

Atlas didn’t give me time to think or protest. He thrust into me, stealing the air from my lungs, his movements wild.

His dick was so big, stretching me.

My hands found his shirt, clinging to it, pulling him closer, hating him, and wanting him all at once. He tipped his head down and met my parted lips with his. I turned my head, refusing to give him that victory.

His hand found my throat, his fingers curling around it with just enough pressure to make me obey when he ordered, “Look at me,” he commanded, his voice low and dangerous. “You don’t get to disappear this time.” His tone, his grip on me, was so heated and possessive.

I tried in vain to slow my pulse. Face balled up.

“Stop pretending you don’t want this.” His deep baritone bounced off the walls.

“I should’ve picked you,” he confessed.

“But you didn’t,” I whispered back, gasping as he started to move.

I tried my best to disconnect from what was happening, but it felt too good. I fucked him back, rolling my hips, like matching his stroke might make it all make sense.

His grip on my throat tightened as he leaned into me. “We feel so good together.”

I wished I had known. I would have said fuck Ashlen if I knew him inside of me would feel so good. So dirty and wrong and absolutely fucking perfect.

He began to move faster. Going deeper.

“Uhhh,” I panted, as my head fell back against the cool mirror. “Yesss. Harder.”

Wetness slipped from my pussy, slicking the inside of my thighs.

His hand fell from my neck, then both locked around my hips as he dragged me to the edge of the sink, until there was no space left between us, forcing me to take him deeper.

The sensation curling in my gut, too much to hold on to. It exploded, warming my entire body.

When we came, I damn near sobbed.

Speeding up the pace, he fucked me through my orgasm, slamming into me until his back stiffened.

“Fuck, Ki,” he groaned.

I felt him cum inside me. His fingers dug into my hips.

He slumped against me, breathing heavily. His forehead pressed to mine.

The air was thick with the scent of sex and regret.

“You kept this from me,” he murmured. “You made me wait. You punished me.” He made it sound like me doing so was ridiculous. Like I was supposed to what—fuck him while he called someone else his forever. While I stood at the edge of his life, watching him give her his all. “We could’ve been everything,” he said, voice low, like he was confessing something sacred. “You and me—we could’ve had forever if you hadn’t pushed me away.”

“I had to. You chose her,” I snapped. “I didn’t make you do that.”

He pulled back just enough to look at me. “I thought I was supposed to. Thought it was for the best.”

“It was, which is why you earned every second of my silence. Every mile I’d put between us,” I spat. Yes, I was bitter.

Everybody in my life had buried me in silence, but still I managed to bloom in the shadows. But I was mad.

We stared at each other for a long moment.

My head suddenly started throbbing, and my mouth felt like it was full of sand.

Then I hit him.

I swung. Hard.

Fist to chest. Once. Then again.

He didn’t stop me. When I tired myself out, I shoved at his chest, hard enough to make him stumble back.

I slid off the sink, legs unsteady, pride shredded, feeling like shame was swallowing me whole.

I wanted to cry. Despite the anger, the shame, the hate, I wanted him inside of me again. Deeper, longer.

But when he reached for me, I flinched away.

And then I ran. Out the door. Past the pink balloons. Past the fake women. Past the version of me I didn’t want to ever be again.

I didn’t stop until I was outside, gasping in air like it could cleanse me.

I felt ruined.

I had finally let him ruin me.

The rain beat down on the earth relentlessly, like it had a grudge against the world. I was out on the fire escape, letting the metal cool my skin, the droplets kissing my arms, my face. The sky was a thick, suffocating black. Harlem had become my home, a place where I could disappear into the noise, but tonight, it felt like I was the only person alive because of how loud my thoughts were—and they wouldn’t let me go.

I leaned back onto the staircase and let the drop soak through my hair, through my clothes, hoping it would cool down the now constant burn just beneath my skin. My life is good, isn’t it? I kept asking myself, like if I repeated it enough, I’d finally believe it. I had a bestselling book, money, a circle of friends who knew me better than anyone. But there was this void, this gnawing emptiness that nothing could fill, no matter how much I tried to outrun it.

The buzz of my phone snapped me back to reality, vibrating against my thick right thigh. A private number. My stomach flipped because I knew who it was. He had been calling me every day for three weeks, since the shower. I hadn’t answered.

My finger hovered over the screen, my heart tripping over itself as I swiped to pick up the call.

I didn’t say anything. Neither did he—not at first. Just the sound of breathing and heavy rain hitting metal filled the silence between us. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear his voice, but it didn’t seem I had a choice now that I'd answered.

“I’m sorry for what happened at the baby shower,” Atlas’s voice was rough, like he’d been carrying those words around too long.

I bit down on whatever I might’ve said, the memory of that day making my skin prickle, my nipples hard and my pussy instantly wet. My body was remembering things I wished it would forget. I stayed silent, waiting for him to say something else, something that would make this conversation worth me contributing to.

He hesitated. “It’s just that... back in school, I felt something with you. And those times when you didn’t run, I know you felt it too. I’ve been living with this regret of not pursuing it, Kairi. Do you know what that does to a person?”

His words cut through whatever defenses I had left. Of course I knew what regret did to a person. It ate you alive, hollowed you out until there was nothing left but a shell of who you used to be.

“Yes,” I whispered, barely louder than the rain. “I felt it too. But it doesn’t matter now. We can’t just hurt people because we missed our shot. You’re married, with a baby on the way. I won’t ruin that for you.”

The silence on the other end was suffocating—the kind that makes you second-guess everything, makes you want to fill it with anything just to make it stop. But I let it sit there, let it settle into my bones, because I knew there was no going back from this.

“Kairi...” he started, but the words fell off, like he didn’t know what to say, like he knew nothing he said could fix what was already broken.

I took a deep breath, letting the rain ground me, cool me down. “We can’t undo what’s been done, Atlas. You chose your path, and I chose mine. We have to live with that. At least we don't have to live without knowing what it felt like to just do what we wanted for once.”

"It's not a good thing, baby. That day, the feeling, the memory haunts me," he confessed.

The silence that followed was so loud, it was almost deafening. I could feel the finality of it—it was a door slamming shut, like the last thread snapping between us. It was over, whatever “it” was, whatever it might have been.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and this time, it was softer, like he was saying it more to himself than to me.

“Me too,” I breathed, the words slipping out before I could stop them.

I heard him take a deep breath, like he was about to say more, but then the line went dead, leaving me with nothing but the sound of the rain and the dark, empty sky. I stared at the phone in my hand, the screen dark and blank, feeling like the ground had just opened up beneath me. Why couldn't I be selfish for once and have what I wanted? But then I thought about Ashlen, and how she had helped me when I needed it—and I couldn’t do that to her.

I stood, stretched the weariness from my bones, and slid back through the window, closing it behind me, dripping water onto the floor as I stood there for a moment, trying to pull myself together. My heart ached, but it was used to it. It had become a part of me. I’d made my choice, and now I had to live with it.

I stood, stretched the weariness from my bones, and slid back through the window, closing it behind me, dripping water onto the tiled floor as I stood there for a moment, trying to pull myself together. My heart ached, but it was used to it.

As I crawled into bed, wet, I pulled the covers up tight around me. I closed my eyes and listened to the rain, hoping it would drown out the echoes of what could have been.

"Lawd, please give me strength," I whispered into the darkness. “Help me move on.”

And as I lay there, I made a promise to myself that even if my prayers weren’t answered. I wouldn’t let him haunt me anymore. I wouldn’t let the past define me. I had a life to live, and it was time to start living it.