He didn't call the next day, or the day after that. At first, I  told myself it was fine, I  needed some space and maybe he did too. But by the fourth day, the silence was heavy. Every notification from my phone had me grabbing the device with ferocity. The disappointment when it was just a meme from Cherry or a client confirming a booking was heart shattering. I was slowly losing my damn mind.

I kept busy, cooking, cleaning, working myself to exhausting and pretending everything was peachy. But the quiet moments stretched too long. By the end of week, Cherry came over to my house to learn one of my recipes. She brought a bottle of wine which I was grateful for. After several hours passed, the recipe taught and completed, I couldn't hold my tongue any longer, I confessed all of it to Cherry. From the night I met Crest, to the anonymous private booking, to date and everything in between. I felt guilty for keeping her in the dark all these while.

Cherry was wide eyed by the time I was done. After the shock wore of, she finally sighed and said.

"First of all, why was I not kept in the loop this whole time?"

She playfully held her chest. "Maybe  it's karma for keeping juicy secrets to yourself and sneaking around."

I rolled my eyes at how dramatic she was being. "I'm sorry, well now I've told you, pacify me, tell me what to do."

 "Okay why exactly did you bite his head off for being a gentleman and offering you drop you home?"

 I sighed, twirling a piece of my hair and said. "It's not that simple."

"Umm, it exactly is that simple Sasha."

I looked at one of the chairs that was missing a leg. "You  don't understand, I didn't want him to see where I live, I panicked and didn't want him to think less of me when he saw."

Cherry was quiet for a long time. Then she said softly. "You  think he cares? Look he's made an effort to get to know you, he's not going to take off running because you don't live in a castle."

That was the problem, not knowing what his expectations of me are, what he'd care about.

"I'd rather not find out what he thinks, while he's standing in my hallway, pretending not to notice the cracks." 

Cherry just studied me, not with judgement, something gentler, a contemplative look.

"You've  got this wall girl, thick as hell. But one day, someone's gonna want to climb it, and you're gonna have to let them."

I laughed. "Yeah? And what if they just use it as a view before they jump back down?"

 She just reached over the counter and poured two glasses from the bottle of wine she brought, we drank in silence. Somewhere between the second and third glass, I admitted to myself that I missed him and decided I was going to be open with him. Damn the consequences. It scared me more than anything else.

It took me three nights to dial his number. What if he was done with me. I must have stared at the screen for an hour before pressing call. My hands were shaking slightly as I sat on the edge of my small bed, not from fear, exactly, but from the weight of what I was about to do. He answered on the second ring. For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then, quietly he spoke.

"Hey."

 "Hey," I said. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted. "If you're home and not busy, and comfortable with me being in your house, is it okay if I come over?"

I was blabbing. I cursed at myself.

There was a pause, surprise, then softness. "Sure."

"Okay," I said. "Send me an address."

His place was across town, a quiet apartment building. The environment looked so clean, you could probably eat off the floors. I took the elevator to the the fourth floor. His house was the whole of the floor. He opened the door before I could knock twice, like he'd been waiting. We stood there a moment, just looking at each other. No makeup, no performance. Just truth. He stepped aside.

"Come in."

 I sat on the edge of his couch, clutching my hands. He poured me water, not wine. Somehow that made it easier to talk. Thick walls, soft lighting, the faint hum of something expensive running quietly in the background. The living room opened up in wide, careful lines, glass, steel, and warm wood tones. Everything looked deliberate. The oversized sectional in dove gray, the art on the walls abstract and expensive-looking but impersonal, a splash of color chosen by someone with taste and distance.

There were little signs of life, a pair of tiny sneakers by the door, a child's drawing stuck to the side of the stainless steel fridge, a forgotten toy car under the console table. Light spilling down from a skylight. In the corner, a record player sat beside a shelf of vinyls that looked barely touched. What a stark contrast to my apartment.

"I need to explain," I said finally.

He nodded. "Okay."

I took a breath.

"That night, when I wouldn't let you drop me off, it wasn't about you. Not really. I just... I didn't want you to see where I live. My apartment's small. The pipes groan. The ceiling leaks when it rains. I fix things with tape and prayer." I gave a quiet laugh. "And I share a wall with a couple who fight like it's their full-time job."

He smiled faintly, waiting.

"I  didn't want you to see it," I said, voice cracking now. "Not because I'm ashamed of being broke, I've been broke most of my life. But because it's the kind of place that makes people look at you differently. And I couldn't stand the thought of you looking at me like that."

 I sniffed and continued. "I was already unsure what your opinion of me was, considering where and how we met. I didn't want to make it worse."

He was silent for a long time. The kind of silence that didn't feel empty, just heavy with everything unsaid. Then he reached out, his hand covering mine.

 "I've seen worse," he said quietly. "And better. But I've never met someone who made me want to understand the difference."

I looked up, blinking through the blur in my eyes. "Why do you even care?"

He smiled. That  slow, unguarded kind of smile that felt like a truth. "Because you make things feel real. Everyone else hides behind perfect. You don't.

I shook my head. "You don't know everything about me."

"Then tell me," he said.

 I told him about my sister,  about the addiction, the nights I stayed awake waiting for a call from the hospital, the money I didn't have but spent anyway. I told him about losing jobs, scraping rent, pretending it was all fine because people liked you better when you smiled. By the time I stopped talking, my throat hurt. He hadn't looked away once. When I finally ran out of words, he said.

 "You think your apartment defines you. It doesn't. You could live in a shoebox and still have more soul than most people I know."

I exhaled, slow and trembling. "You really want to see it?

He nodded. "I want to see you."

Something broke open in me then, not the kind of breaking that hurts, but the kind that lets the light in.

"Hey," said softly. "Look at me."

I did.

 "There's nothing about you I need to be protected from. You don't have to impress me." 

The sincerity in his voice warmed something in me. The part that had been tight with shame and pride finally loosened. I exhaled.

"You have no idea how hard it is to believe that."

"Then let me show you." He said.

He reached for my hand, slow, careful. The space between us dissolved. His touch was warm, steady, and when he kissed me, it wasn't like before. It wasn't escape. It was relief,the kind that comes after years of holding your breath.

After that night, the one where I finally told him everything, I thought things might have shifted. Not dramatically, not in fireworks and flowers, but... something. I felt free. He  knew me now. Really knew me. And part of me expected that to mean something. But days passed. Then a week. Then months.We texted. We met up a lot and had hot steamy sex. Dates, gifts, lots of gifts, long drives, afternoons where the air between us hummed with something unspoken. But he never asked. Not to be official, not even, "What are we doing?" Just... this gentle, constant almost like a  relationship vibe but without a label. He'd brush a strand of hair from my face, say things like "You make it easy to be around you," or "I miss this." When he'd return from a short trip. But "this" never had a name. And I hated that it mattered to me.

I told myself I was fine,  that I didn't want a label, that I wasn't the kind of woman who needed one. But the truth was, I did. I just didn't know how to ask what we were doing without sounding desperate. One night, I was cooking for a small dinner party. A group of content creators were having a party. The kitchen smelled like roasted garlic and lemon. My playlist was soft jazz, the kind that usually steadied me. But all I could think about was how quiet my phone was.When it finally buzzed, my heart jumped. It wasn't him. It was Cherry.

CHERRY: "Still seeing your mystery man?"

ME: "Kind of."

CHERRY: "What's kind of?"

ME: "We hang out."

CHERRY: "He's sleeping with you freely and not calling it anything, huh?"

ME: "It's not like that, he already told me he can't do casual with me, so baby steps."

CHERRY: "We need to talk, come by my  house in the morning."

ME: "why? What's going on?"

CHERRY: "we'll talk when you get here, xoxo."

 Cherry's apartment always smelled faintly of sandalwood and something expensive she never named. The lights were low, her curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, soft jazz drifting from a speaker tucked somewhere near her vanity. I hadn't been here in weeks. The last time, we'd drunk cheap prosecco on her balcony and talked about men like they were another language we were both trying to unlearn. Now, sitting on her velvet couch with a glass of wine I hadn't asked for, I could tell something was off. She looked... careful. Like someone rehearsing what not to say.

"What's wrong?" I asked her, I was beginning to get worried.

Cherry exhaled, took a sip, then set her glass down with both hands.

 "Okay," she said slowly. "I wasn't going to tell you this, but I think it's important you hear it." 

Immediately, my stomach tightened, my pulse racing. She looked at me, really looked, like she was measuring how much truth I could handle.

 "I saw him," she said quietly.

"Him?" I asked, even though I knew.

She nodded. "Two nights ago. Robin called last-minute to accompany him to  a dinner party with some art crowd in the West Loop."

 I tried not to guess where the conversation was going.

 She spoke again a minute later. "He was there."

  I gave her an arritated look. "Who the fuck is he."

She huffed and threw her hands in the air before saying, "Crest" in a whisper, like someone was listening. 

In as much as Crest and I have a thing going on, I haven't made it my life's mission to keep tabs on his movement, social life, business or what he does with his time. So I gave Cherry a look that said "so?" She picked up her glass again and said.

 "Well, he wasn't alone, he came with an arm candy, and they looked pretty cozy together." 

I stayed quiet, she continued, reaching out to touch my knee.

"I didn't want to tell you, because I wasn't sure what the nature of your relationship with him was, regardless I thought you should know."

Cherry stopped talking, waiting for me to say something. The room suddenly felt smaller. The hum of the city outside the window, the faint jazz, everything pressed in on me at once. I nodded. Staring at the half empty glass in my hand.

 "Thanks." I said, but my voice came out thinner than I meant it to.

"You okay?"

"I don't know." I said.

She poured more wine, though neither of us drank.

"I mean, maybe it's not what it looked like," Cherry said after a while, her tone gentle, almost apologetic. "You said he's divorced, right? Maybe she's just...I don't know, maybe you should talk to him, hear what he says."

 "Well, wasn't like we ever discussed the dynamics of our relationship, he just said he wanted me and didn't it to be casual. I never asked him what that meant."

Cherry looked and me and said. "I think  it's probably time you both discussed that. I would hate to see you get hurt."

What she didn't know was that I was already  hurting so much like I was bruised from the inside. I maintained a clam exterior and told her I needed to run some errands and left.

Two days passed before I brought myself to take his calls. I tried to force myself into making excuses for him. But the truth was, he might not have made things official between us, but he very much acted and treated me like we were an item already. When his name lit up on my phone, I stared at the screen until it almost went dark. Then I picked up.

"Hey," he said. His voice was calm, familiar, like nothing had happened.

"Hey."

There was a pause, soft but loaded.

"I figured you heard."

I swallowed. "Cherry saw you."

He sighed. "Yeah. I thought that might get back to you."

"Is there something you want to say to me?" I asked, keeping my tone even.

 "Come on, It wasn't what it looked it." He said quietly.

I almost laughed at how cliché that sounded.

"That's what people always say before it's exactly what it looked like."

 He hesitated. "She's not... it's not like that. She's... a companion. One of Robin's girls. I didn't even plan to see her and nothing happened between us."

 I blinked. "A companion?"

He exhaled. "An escort. It wasn't the kind of place you'd want to be."

 There was a long silence. I could hear him breathing, steady and low, the way he always did when he was trying not to say the wrong thing.

 "The least you could do right now, is respect me enough not to gaslight and manipulate me."

He was about to speak when I hung up. The silence that followed was almost physical,  pressing against my ribs, heavy and hollow. I stood there, in the middle of my sitting room for a long time, phone still in hand, staring at nothing.