Porte slouched against the wall. He slid down against it until he hit the carpet.
He looked around his bedroom in his lone apartment.
It was Christmas—and he was alone.
A white box laying on his black sheets taunted him from across the room—his new phone.
The old one was unrepairable after he had chucked it across the room weeks ago.
The last time he used it was in the parking lot with Esi, before Talia called him—out of the blue. They hadn't spoken in nearly a year since he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with her—with the toxicity of what was happening between them.
He had finally felt like the grip around his neck was loosened, and for some reason, she had let him go—without much fuss.
He was relieved.
How was it that now, at his happiest, she'd suddenly popped—more like rammed—back into his life again. Completely throwing his world off kilter.
Maybe the fault was his—so caught up in his own world that he'd forgotten what that weekend was.
What is meant to her.
What it should've meant to him.
The death of her sister, the death of his friend—Natasha Graham.
A death that was his fault.
So as much as he wanted to pursue Esi, in a way that was more than friendship, he had to settle for only that. And even that was too much because she wasn't safe with him.
Yet still, he was selfish because there was a brightness to her that illuminated the darkness that shrouded him, and he craved it.
That breath of fresh air.
He needed it.
A/N
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Enjoy!