Page 4 of The Wreckage Of Us (US #2)

Ace

I don’t remember how long I sat on those steps after Brittany closed the door.

Minutes, hours, maybe years.

It was the kind of silence that seeps into your bones, the kind that makes you wonder if you’ve stopped existing too. The night wrapped around me like a punishment, cold and sharp, and I sat there with my head in my hands, elbows digging into my knees, fingers pulling at my hair so hard it hurt.

I had thought—God, I had actually thought—she’d let me explain. That love would be enough. That if I just stood there, heart in my hands, she would take it, maybe shake her head at me, maybe punch me in the chest, but she would take it.

But the door stayed closed.

And when I finally dragged myself down the stairs, legs shaking like they were about to give out, something inside me cracked wide open.

---

The days blurred.

I don’t remember when I first started showing up at Brittany’s apartment every morning. I just remember being there. Standing outside her door, sometimes with coffee, sometimes with flowers, sometimes with nothing but my own desperate heart.

She never opened.

I’d knock, gently at first, then with more insistence, calling her name like a fool.

“Brittany, please… just five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

Nothing.

“Brittany. Please. Please, just—”

Still nothing.

Sometimes I’d sit on the stairs and wait, heart beating out its miserable rhythm, listening for the sound of her footsteps inside.

Sometimes I heard Sylvia’s voice, calm and steady, murmuring to her on the other side of the door.

Once, Sylvia opened the door and stepped outside, arms crossed, her eyes soft with pity but firm with boundaries.

“Ace, go home,” she said gently, closing the door behind her. “She’s not ready. Give her time.”

But time felt like poison.

Every day that passed was another thread slipping out of my hands, another chance falling into the void between us. And the worst part wasn’t the door in my face—it was seeing her.

God, it was seeing her.

At the grocery store. Walking down the street. Laughing with Sylvia on the sidewalk. Sitting at the café near the corner, sunlight catching the strands of her hair and making her look like something I didn’t deserve to touch.

And every time I saw her, she looked right through me.

Like I was air.

Like I was the ghost she had already buried.

I’d stand there, across the street or behind her in line, hands trembling at my sides, and she wouldn’t even blink in my direction. Sometimes my chest would tighten so fast, so hard, that I’d rub at it without thinking, fingers pressing into the ache as if I could dig the pain out of me.

It never worked.

---

I started spiraling.

Nights became endless. Sleep was something I used to do, back when my body belonged to me. Now it belonged to the ache, the hunger, the desperate wanting.

I stopped eating.

Stopped showering as often as I should have.

I stared at the ceiling at 3 a.m., wondering if she was sleeping, if she was dreaming, if she was thinking of me at all—or if she had finally, finally learned to stop.

One night, drunk out of my mind on the whiskey I’d sworn off a year ago, I found myself outside her apartment again.

The world spun.

I leaned against the door, forehead pressed to the wood, whispering her name.

“Brittany… baby, please… just let me—” My voice broke on a sob I didn’t know was coming. “I can’t—I can’t do this without you.”

The door stayed silent.

I slid down to the floor, crumpling like a man who’d run out of ways to stand. I sat there for hours, maybe longer, until Sylvia cracked the door open just enough to slip through, crouching in front of me with a look that made my throat tighten.

“Ace,” she said softly, “this isn’t helping.”

I let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “I know.”

She put a hand on my shoulder, fingers light but grounding. “Go home. Please. She needs space.”

I closed my eyes, swallowing the bile in my throat. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

“She knows.”

“Tell her I love her.”

“She knows that too.”

But knowing and forgiving, I was learning, were oceans apart.

---

The days kept coming.

Brittany turned twenty-eight, and I watched her from across the café, from behind my coffee cup, heart thudding like a war drum in my chest.

She was radiant.

There was no other word for it. Confident, beautiful, with a quiet strength that made my chest ache.

And me?

I was thirty-five, nearly thirty-six, staring at her like a man who had wasted his best years on fear and now realized too late that he was standing on the wrong side of the finish line.

I watched as she laughed with friends, as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, as she leaned back in her chair and smiled at something Sylvia whispered in her ear.

And every part of me screamed: That’s mine.

But she was no longer mine.

---

One evening, I sat in my car outside her apartment, watching the lights flicker on in her window, hands gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles turned white.

“God,” I whispered into the dark, voice shaking. “What do I do? How do I fix this? Please…”

I hit the steering wheel once, twice, my breath coming in shallow gasps.

When I stumbled out of the car, I almost tripped over my own feet as I made my way to her door. My hands shook as I knocked, then knocked again, panic clawing up my throat.

“Brittany, it’s me,” I called, voice raw. “Please. Please, baby, just talk to me.”

I waited.

The world waited.

No answer.

I slid down to the ground, knees to my chest, forehead resting on my arms.

That’s where Sylvia found me again.

“Ace,” she murmured, crouching beside me. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“I don’t know how to stop.”

She touched my shoulder, her voice kind but firm. “You need to go home.”

I let out a strangled laugh. “Home? Where the hell is that, Sylvia? She was my home.”

For a moment, her face softened, and I thought—just for a moment—she might open the door, let me inside, let me see her.

But she only squeezed my shoulder and whispered, “Go home, Ace,” before slipping back inside.

The door clicked shut.

The darkness swallowed me whole.

---

I began drifting through my days like a man half-alive.

I showed up to work, barely functional, colleagues throwing me worried glances I brushed off with tight smiles. I went to meetings I didn’t remember, sat at dinner tables I couldn’t taste, lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, trying to remember the sound of her laugh.

And everywhere I went, I saw her.

At the store, a flash of her hair in the next aisle.

On the street, the shape of her shoulders in the crowd.

At the café, the scent of her perfume lingering long after she was gone.

And every time, my chest would tighten, my hand flying unconsciously to rub at the ache, fingers pressing into skin that never stopped hurting.

---

One night, weeks after I’d last seen her up close, I found myself standing outside her building again.

I didn’t knock this time.

I just stood there, hands in my pockets, staring up at her window like a man waiting for a miracle.

Behind me, the city moved—cars passing, voices drifting, laughter spilling from a nearby bar. But none of it touched me.

All I could think was: I’m running out of time.

I was getting old. Too old for the way she glowed, the way she was stepping into her prime, the way she was reclaiming her life. She was twenty-eight, shining and unbreakable, and I was the wreckage she had crawled free from.

And still, I couldn’t let go.

Still, I wanted to believe that if I just stood there long enough, she would appear in the window, look down, see me.

But the window stayed dark.

And I stayed alone.

---

When I finally turned to go, the night was cold against my skin, the stars sharp overhead.

I walked without thinking, hands shoved deep in my pockets, head down, heart dragging behind me like an anchor.

And as I walked, I whispered her name under my breath, over and over, like maybe if I said it enough, the universe would hear.

Like maybe if I said it enough, she’d come back.