Chapter 171
There’s a note tucked between the stems. I don’t read it, but I catch the signature.
Aaron Cobalt.
I blink. Well… that’s new.
I definitely didn’t see that coming.
With a long sigh, I gather up the overpriced candles, the food, the flowers, the lingering scent of my regret, and swipe my key card to let myself in.
“Tessa!” I call out, kicking the door shut behind me with more force than necessary. The bags drop onto the counter with a satisfying thud. “What the hell even is your problem?!”
The apartment smells like vanilla. Sweet and suffocating. I don’t need to guess – she’s lit up every candle she had left.
It only makes me angrier.
I shrug off my coat, tossing it over a chair as I stomp through the hallway. My voice climbs with every step. “Do you know I just got a full lecture from your delivery guy? Apparently A. Cobalt has been sending you food and flowers every day for weeks, and your response is radio silence!”
I reach her office door and pause. It’s closed. Of course it is.
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I throw my hands up. “He said you told him to start throwing them out. Do you have any idea how dramatic that sounds? It’s like the plot of a soap opera, and you’re the emotionally constipated lead!”
Still no answer.
“I bought your stupid candles. I ignored my gut and pretended I didn’t notice that half your grocery list reads like a breakdown. But this?” I jab a thumb toward the door like she can see me. “This is not healthy!”
I take a breath.
No answer.
I take a breath, try to reel it back in. My voice had gotten sharper than I meant, and now that I’ve let it all out, I feel a little… wrung out.
I turn to leave, already half–regretting the outburst -bwhen something catches my eye.
A tray.
The breakfast I made her this morning.
Still sitting there. Still untouched.
My jaw tightens. That fuse I thought I’d burned out? Yeah. It sparks right back to life.
I storm over to her office door, half–prepared to drag her out by the ear
– only to realise it’s unlocked.
And empty
I freeze in the doorway.
She’s not here.
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I don’t know whether to laugh, scream, or bang my head against a wall.
This morning, all I wanted was for her to leave this damn office. And now that she has? I want to throttle her for it.
Mentally. Obviously.
Sort of.
I back away and head for her bedroom, not even bothering to knock. I push the door open – and immediately regret it.
It’s a mess. Like, hurricane–hit–a–thrift–store kind of mess.
My mouth parts in disbelief. Tessa might not be a neat freak, but this? This is not her.
—
There’s always been method to her madness – something she calls “controlled chaos.” Clothes draped on a chair but never on the floor, makeup scattered but colour–coded, sticky notes in three different languages. It was a system, in its own weird way. She always knew exactly where her things were.
But now?
Now it looks like she lost control. Or stopped caring.
My heart sinks a little. The frustration lingers, but it’s shifting. Morphing into something quieter. Guiltier.
I shouldn’t be this mad at her.
Not when everything about this room screams someone unraveling.
With a heavy sigh, I start picking things up. Empty coffee mugs. A shirt I’m 95% sure she stole from me. Crumpled receipts. Papers, some of them with scribbles, some completely blank. I start folding blankets,
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stacking books, sorting makeup brushes.
–
It’s only as I clean that I realise how long it’s been since I’ve actually seen her — not just physically, but truly seen her. She’s been a ghost in her own life. And I’ve been too busy being annoyed to really notice.
Eventually, the chaos starts to shrink. The floor reappears. Her bed looks less like a battlefield and more like somewhere a person might actually sleep.
And for the first time since I stepped into this apartment, I pause.
Not because I’m done cleaning.
But because I finally let myself feel it.
That quiet, aching thing I hadn’t wanted to name?
Worry.
Real. sinking, bone–deep worry.
I scoop up a few crumpled receipts and cross the room to set them on her desk — but then I notice her laptop. Still open. The screen faintly glowing.
—
I reach to close it out of instinct.
But then I see what’s on it.
And my breath stalls.
An unfinished resignation letter. The words are short, clinical. No explanation. Just a full stop.
In the next tab, there’s a search open: “therapists near me“.
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My stomach twists. Somehow, it’s the resignation letter that unsettles
me more.
