Page 129 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

We didn’t need definitions.

We didn’t need to talk about what we were.

Because whatever this was, it felt like before. And before had been enough for me once.

So I convinced myself it would be enough again.

And when he held me—when the world quieted down to just the heartbeats between us, when everything else faded into something distant and unimportant—I let myself believe it completely.

That this was it.

This was real.

That this was home.

Dinner ended the way most of our nights did now—uncomplicated.

We stepped out into the night together, the air cooler than it had been inside, carrying the faint hum of the city settling into itself. Cars passed. People lingered outside cafes and restaurants, still laughing, still talking like the night wasn’t ready to end yet.

Victor walked beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost brushed.

Almost.

I glanced at his hand, relaxed at his side.

Close enough to grab mine.

It would’ve been so much easier. Just a small shift or a quiet decision.

Almost.

I imagined it for a second: his fingers lacing with mine. Casual. Unbothered. Like I wasn’t something that needed to be hidden.

But the moment passed.

And I let it.

I slipped my hands into my pockets instead, telling myself this was the reason why didn’t reach for mine.

“Victor!”

A voice cut through the night—familiar to him, not to me.

Victor turned. “Kent.”

A guy approached us, already smiling.

“Didn’t expect you to see here,” he said, clapping Victor lightly on the shoulder.

“Same,” Victor replied. “Just had dinner.”

They slipped into conversation easily—work, mostly. Projects. Deadlines. Names I didn’t recognize.

And I just stood there behind him. Present, but not really part of it.

Kent kept glancing at me. Not obviously, but just enough to have a quick look. Then back at Victor.

Then again, like he was trying to place me, or figure out why I was there in the first place.