Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Arrow 8:02 a.m. — Hey. You sleeping? Eat something.
Arrow 12:27 p.m. — Just checking. I’m here, no pressure.
Arrow 3:41 p.m. — Do you want space or company? I’ll do either.
Arrow 9:58 p.m. — Home? Safe?
Arrow (this morning, 7:12 a.m.) — Standing order still stands: you don’t do this alone.
Every time the phrase standing order pops up, my heart squeezes. It’s sweet. It’s also controlling. It can be both. The contradiction is what’s killing me.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three gentle taps. Our rhythm. My breath stumbles. I pad to the door and peek through the peephole. Arrow stands there, hoodie, jeans, and the defeated posture of a man who knows he’s the villain in his own romcom. He’s holding two coffees and a little paper bag—the bagels he knows I won’t buy for myself when I’m mad.
I press my forehead to the door. For two long beats, I do nothing. The smart part of me says don’t open it. The ache in my chest says throw the deadbolt and the rest of you at him.
I unlatch and crack it two inches. “Hey.”
His eyes brighten with hope. “Hey.”
The hallway smells like floor cleaner and someone else’s toast. The paper bag crinkles when he lifts it. “Cinnamon-raisin for you. Sesame for bribery.”
I swallow. “You shouldn’t have come.”
He nods, accepts the blow. “Probably not. But I needed to see you breathe.”
“I’m breathing.” It comes out flat, so I soften. “Thanks for the coffee.”
He holds mine out. My fingers graze his. We both flinch. He winces like I slapped him. “Juno, I—”
“Don’t,” I whisper, and push the door another inch between us. “Not today.”
His jaw tightens. “Okay.” He sets the bag on the floor, careful, like leaving an offering at a shrine. “I’ll go.”
“Arrow—” The apology climbs my throat and dies there. I hate this. I hate that I miss him inside the same beat that I imagine throwing his laptop out the window. “Just…not today.”
He nods again. There’s a tiny wrinkle between his brows I’ve only ever seen when I cry or when a server’s packet drops. “I’m here when you want me,” he says, and the hall swallows the sound of his retreating steps.
I shut the door. Lock clicks like a gavel. Immediately the apartment feels colder, bigger, wrong. The bag sits there like dogs waiting for permission. I pick it up, and then do what any modern woman does after telling her almost-boyfriend to go away: I open my phone and stare at the live view from my Ring camera.
Arrow’s back is a slumped, gray smudge moving down the stairs. He pauses on the landing and looks back up at my door as if he can see through wood and indecision. The feed glitches, then smooths. He disappears.
The little blue light on the Ring blinks at me. I narrow my eyes at it. “You watching now?” I ask the camera like it’s him. “You lurking on my doorstep the way you lurked in my inbox?”
Silence, except for the fan whir and a neighbor’s laugh down the hall. The camera’s eye remains unblinking. I know the logical thing: Arrow doesn’t have my Ring login. But logic left three days ago holding a suitcase and a note. He is a security consultant. He knows backdoors I don’t.
“I’m going to disable you,” I say to the camera.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
Arrow 8:31 a.m. — Don’t disable your Ring. Please. It’s another set of eyes. I’ll stop checking. Promise.
Heat scalds my cheeks. “Of course you checked,” I mutter, staring into the tiny black lens. “Of course you did.”
I prop the phone on the entry table and look straight at the camera. “I’m shutting you off,” I tell it, voice steadying as I speak. “Not forever. Just…for me. For now.”
The phone buzzes again, immediate, like a heartbeat.
Arrow 8:32 a.m. — Juno, don’t. It’s not safe. At least leave notifications on. I’m not watching. I swear.
Swear. Promise. Standing order. My throat tightens. “You put spyware on my laptop,” I tell the Ring, “and you want me to trust your swears?”
The blue light blinks like an eye twitching. I hold the button, tap through menus, and shut it down. The screen goes to black. The apartment exhales in a way I didn’t know it needed to. Quiet. Mine.
Almost at once another text:
Arrow 8:33 a.m. — Okay. I hear you. I’m…here anyway. Text if you need me. I’ll back off.
Back off. The phrase lands like a stone in a pond, sending rings of pain outward. I want to text I always need you, but pride has sharp edges. I put my phone face-down on the table and go to the kitchen to pour the coffee into one of Arby’s old mugs.
I can’t drink without seeing her. Her grin in that stupid Christmas photo. The day she stole my favorite hoodie and said it looked better on camera. The time she fell asleep on my couch with a horror movie paused at the scariest frame—monster mid-lunge, teeth like knives—and woke up laughing because my scream had scared the monster back.