I hate more that I remember Finn smiling at her that night. Not the way he smiled at me. No. Not quite. With me, it was real. I thought. With her, it was… easy. Automatic. Like muscle memory.
I shift on the couch, trying to curl deeper into Shay, into the cushions, into anything that isn’t this body. This body that suddenly feels too soft. Too loud. Too much.
“I gave him everything,” I murmur, almost to myself.
Shay doesn’t say anything. Her hand finds mine, warm and steady.
I stare at the ceiling like the answers are hidden in the cracks. “I dideverything right. I was low-maintenance. Chill. Supportive. I never asked too much, I gave him space. I—God, Itrustedhim.”
I feel the heat rising now, behind my eyes, my cheeks, my throat. “And for what? So he could turn around and put his hands onherlike I’m some phase he grew out of?”
I feel it. The cry I was holding back. It isn’t graceful. It’s not even cinematic. It’s messy and shaky and full of something ugly. The kind of grief that has nowhere to go because it’s still trying to figure out if it has permission to exist.
Shay lets me wallow. She doesn't try to fix it, or me. She just puts on her playlist of breakup music and makes me some mac and cheese.
But right now? I can’t stop the questions or the endless looping in my head. It’s like a curse, or a terrible nightmare that is now my reality.
What does she give him that I couldn’t?
And worse?—
Why does he want her more?
40
FINN
HOW TO RUIN EVERYTHING WITH POOR JUDGMENT
Game Misconduct:You’re out of the game entirely. Irreversible. Final.I may have just lost her for good. I’m such an ass.
I’ve been staring at the same wall for two hours—maybe more. The clock ticks like it’s mocking me—loud, steady, and annoying.
The phone is on the counter, flipped face down, but it doesn’t matter. The image is already seared into my brain. Overexposed. Cropped just right. Me, laughing too close to Tess. Her hand on my arm. My smile caught mid-sentence like a goddamn dagger.
I know what it looks like – me being unfaithful to Kate.
But that’s the thing about moments—they never tell the whole story. A split-second captured, and now the whole world thinks it knows who I am. Worse—shedoes.
Oh, God.
I keep thinking back to that night, rewinding every breath, every look. I was stupid. Naïve. I thought I could handle Tess being there. Thought I could be polite, cordial. Professional.
But she leaned in. Smiled that too-familiar smile. Touched me like she still had permission.
And I—I didn’t move away fast enough.
That’s all it took.
One picture. One moment of hesitation. And everything I had with Kate? Burned to the ground in seconds. I drag my hands down my face, the guilt sitting like concrete in my chest.
I didn’t touch Tess like that. I didn’twanther. But I also didn’t stop her. I wasn’t fast enough to matter anyway. And that hesitation cost me everything.
I see Kate’s face when she laughed with her head thrown back with Lord Stanley. I hear the way she said my name, as if it meant something real, when we made love.
I remember how she trusted me with the softest parts of her—the ones she never let anyone else see. And now I’ve shattered them, even if I didn’t mean to.
That’s the thing, isn’t it?Intentdoesn’t matter when the damage is done.
