Page 50 of Until the Storm Breaks (The Midnight Men #1)

CALVIN

The Seattle apartment greets me with its familiar sterility when I finally unlock the door after nine PM.

I’d driven straight through after leaving Dark River this morning, stopped only once for gas, and spent the entire afternoon and evening walking the city in the rain, putting off coming back here.

But eventually the rain got heavier and the coffee shops closed and I ran out of reasons to stay away.

The windows frame the city lights blurred by rain.

Everything here is exactly as I left it.

First editions lined up by height on the built-in shelves.

The minimalist furniture that a designer assured me would “speak to my aesthetic” sits there, saying nothing.

A bar cart stocked with whiskey I bought to impress people I no longer invite over.

Zero clutter, zero warmth, zero evidence that anyone actually lives here.

Nothing like the cabins. Nothing like Maren’s mismatched mugs and the way she left books face-down on every surface, spines cracking, making the librarian in me cringe and laugh at the same time.

Here, my twenty identical shirts hang precisely one inch apart.

There, her clothes were thrown over chairs, mixed with mine on the floor, evidence of life actually being lived.

I set my bags down by the door, and the sound echoes in the emptiness.

I pour myself a whiskey and sit at my desk, the one that cost hundreds of dollars and with a chair that has perfect lumbar support and makes me feel like I’m writing important things even when I’m just grading freshman essays about why The Great Gatsby is still relevant.

I open my laptop, staring at a blank page. I’m supposed to be preparing for the panels about finding meaning in loss. The irony sits heavy in my chest. I’m supposed to talk about weathering grief while actively running from the best thing that’s happened to me in years.

The document cursor blinks at me. I type: Thank you for having me.

Brilliant. Profound. Sure to change lives.

Twenty minutes pass. Thirty. Nothing else comes.

The blank page mocks me, and all I can think about is how Maren would tease me about my writer’s block.

“Just write something terrible,” she’d say, stealing my coffee.

“You can’t edit a blank page.” But she’s not here to steal my coffee or make me laugh or pull me away from the desk when I’m taking myself too seriously.

Seven years she’s had my words on her skin.

Seven years. The image stays with me: that delicate script on her ribs, words I wrote turned into something permanent on her body.

All those times she must have turned away, adjusted positions, made sure I never got a clear look. The deliberate deception of it burns.

The thing is, I believe her explanation. Twenty-one and grieving, finding comfort in my words. That tracks. Being scared to tell me once we got involved. I get it. But understanding why she lied doesn’t erase the fact that she did. For weeks. Every single day, choosing to hide it.

My birth parents I can dismiss easily. Strangers wanting money. But Maren? That’s more complicated. She’s the woman I fell for, who happens to have been carrying my words on her body since before we met. The two things can be true at once. The question is whether I can get past the deception.

I pull up my laptop. Multiple browser tabs sit open. The faculty portal with its endless administrative emails. Messages from my department chair about next semester that I haven’t answered in weeks. And there, in a separate window, the sabbatical request I’ve been drafting.

Dear Dr. Harrison, I am writing to request a sabbatical. Due to personal circumstances requiring my attention...

Personal circumstances. Is that what Maren is? A personal circumstance?

I finish typing it properly this time. Print it. Fold it. Slide it into a university envelope. Maybe I’ll submit it tomorrow. Maybe I won’t. But having it ready feels like a step toward something, even if I don’t know what.

I wake before dawn, same as always. But here there’s no reason for it. No sunroom to work on, no coffee to make for two, no Laila demanding breakfast. Just me in this sterile box, trying to remember why I thought this was where I belonged.

The morning brings Seattle’s eternal drizzle. I make coffee with the expensive machine that requires a manual to operate, nothing like the simple pour-over rhythm Maren and I had developed.

By midmorning, I give up on trying to write and head out into the city.

I end up at Elliott Bay Book Company, drawn by muscle memory and masochism.

The new releases table features authors I’ve never heard of, bright covers promising fresh voices and diverse perspectives.

Writers who have something current to say, something that matters now.

Through the stacks, I drift to the “Local Authors” display. There, tucked in the bottom corner like an afterthought, sits one face-out copy of my collection. Someone’s stuck a “Staff Pick” sticker on it with a handwritten note: Beautiful meditation on loss. Made me cry on the bus. - Brad

Brad, whoever you are, I’m sorry.

I can’t stand being in here anymore, surrounded by all these words, all these stories that actually got finished. I push through the doors back into the drizzle.

The rain follows me to Volunteer Park. A couple shares a bench despite the weather, leaning into each other like the world outside their bubble doesn’t exist. The casual intimacy of it makes me look away.

My phone buzzes. Theo.

Theo: How’s Seattle?

I stare at it for a full minute before responding.

Calvin: Fine. Working on conference stuff.

Theo: You okay? You left pretty suddenly.

My biological father ambushed me at breakfast and the woman I love has my words tattooed on her body.

Calvin: Yeah. Just needed to get back. You know how it is.

Theo: Sure. Hey, Maren seemed upset when I saw her earlier to drop off Laila. Everything okay there?

My chest tightens. So she’s not pretending to be fine. She’s upset. Visibly upset. Upset enough that my brother noticed.

Calvin: It’s complicated.

Theo: It doesn’t have to be. Hope you two can figure things out. I’m here if you need to talk.

I don’t respond to that. Can’t respond to that. Theo means well but he doesn’t know the full story. Finding out someone’s been hiding something that fundamental changes things.

Dark River is smaller than Seattle. Quieter. Less impressive on paper. But somehow, I felt bigger there. Like I was expanding into spaces I didn’t know existed. Here, surrounded by everything I thought I wanted, I feel like I’m shrinking. Like I’m disappearing into my own life.

That evening, the walk to campus is meditative in the rain. Or it would be if I could stop thinking. The UW liberal arts building looms Gothic and imposing. The back entrance is propped open for cleaning staff, and I slip through like I’m nineteen again, sneaking into after-hours study sessions.

The hallways smell like industrial cleaner and academic anxiety.

That specific combination of floor wax and desperation that every university in America probably shares.

I pass my old classroom, peer through the narrow window at the empty seats where I’ve spent the last decade trying to teach something I’m not sure I understand anymore.

How do you teach people to write about truth when you’re lying to yourself?

There’s a framed faculty photo on the wall outside the department office.

The whole creative writing department grinning at some long-ago holiday party.

I find myself immediately: shorter hair, stiffer smile, trying so hard to look like I belonged.

Like I’d made it. Like getting a tenure-track position at thirty was the answer to everything.

You look miserable, I think, studying my own face. You look like someone performing happiness.

The grad assistant working the late shift in the department office looks up from her laptop when I enter. She’s maybe twenty-three, wearing a Sleater-Kinney t-shirt and the exhausted expression of someone grading freshman composition essays.

“Professor Midnight,” she says, surprised. “Didn’t expect anyone this late.”

“Jasmine, right?” I remember her from orientation.

“Yes! I’m impressed you remember.”

I hand her the envelope. “Can you time-stamp this?”

“Sure.” She pulls out the date stamp, marks it officially. “Want a receipt?”

“Yeah. Just in case.”

She prints out a small confirmation slip, hands it over.

“Thanks,” I say, pocketing the receipt.

“No problem. Have a good night, Professor.”

Back in the apartment, the silence is still oppressive. I sit at my desk as night falls over the city. The rain has stopped, leaving everything shiny and clean-looking, like the whole city has been pressure-washed.

I pour a vodka on ice, then pour it down the sink. Getting drunk alone in this apartment isn’t going to fix anything. Neither is staying sober, but at least I’ll hate myself less in the morning.

I should text her. Should call. Should drive back to Dark River right now and tell her that I understand, I believe her.

That I want to try again. But I don’t. Because soon I have to stand in front of people and pretend I know something about surviving loss, about finding meaning, about all the things I write about but can’t actually do.

I scroll through my photos instead. There’s one from last week, Maren and Laila on the beach.

Maren’s laughing at something, hair wild in the wind, Laila mid-leap for a stick.

I took it without them noticing, wanting to capture that moment of pure joy.

Now it feels like evidence of a life I’ve already lost.

Back at the desk, the cursor still blinks at me from the blank document.

I need something to read, something to say.

But all I can think about is Maren, probably closing up the bar right now, wiping down tables, counting the till.

Going home to that cabin alone. Wondering if I ever meant any of the words I said.

I close the laptop without writing a word. The conference starts the day after tomorrow. After that, I’ll decide whether to go back to Dark River or not.