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Maggie

Two months ago…

I’m standing outside his front door in the pouring rain when I realize I probably should’ve called first.

If I wasn’t crying hysterically the whole way, I might have considered as much before now.

It was somewhere between four and five a.m. the last time I looked at the clock on my car’s dash, which means Theo is still sound asleep like the rest of the world at this hour.

What was I thinking coming here?

Throwing all my clothes in my suitcase and driving across the state in the middle of the night was maybe a bit of an overreaction.

But I just couldn’t stay there in our apartment with Wyatt a second longer.

His apartment. In his city. Surrounded by his friends.

I spent over a year trying to force myself into Wyatt’s life, like I wasn’t the wrong puzzle piece from the start.

Shaking my head, I glance down at my thin, wet, mint-green pajamas and turn around to flee. I’ll get a hotel room, shower, put on some actual clothes, and text Theo like a normal human being when things aren’t so…confusing. When my face isn’t all red and puffy from bawling for hours.

Later today, when the sun comes up, this won’t feel quite so catastrophic. I’ll start looking for apartments and jobs at a bakery in Wilmington, doing the job I always wanted in the city near my favorite beaches.

Yes, that sounds like a great plan.

I turn around and start jogging down the wooden steps back into the rain just as the front door creaks open behind me.

“Maggie?”

I freeze mid-step in the downpour, fully regretting that I showed up looking like a human train wreck.

I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing this was all a bad dream I could wake up from.

“Maggie, what’s wrong?” Theo asks. I hear his footsteps approaching me just before his hand wraps around my arm.

His first reaction was concern, not annoyance.

Which, for some reason, makes me want to cry harder.

“Sorry, it’s late. Or early,” I reply with a sniffle. “I’ll come back later.”

“Maggie…” he says again.

Theo is barefoot in his pajamas, unconcerned by the freezing rain.

Tall and muscular, with his short brown hair messy from sleep, he still looks like the kind of man women would ruin their lives over.

“Jesus. What happened? Why are you crying?” he asks before he reaches up and swipes his thumbs over both of my cheeks, somehow able to tell they were tears and not water droplets. “What did that asshole do to you?”

A puff of laughter escapes me as I lower my eyes, feeling so incredibly stupid. Of course he would assume Wyatt is to blame, not that I’m the one who ruined everything.

And right now, when I’m a crying disaster in pajamas, is definitely not the time for this conversation.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that, and yet I came straight here to talk to Theo anyway.

“Sorry I woke you up,” I start. Using the sleeves of my pajama shirt, I try to dry my face while I figure out how to say the rest of the words.