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.

A week passed before I agreed to see him. Seven days of silence. Seven mornings of waking up determined not to think about him, and seven nights of losing that battle.When he called again, his voice was careful, low, uncertain, like someone approaching a wounded animal.

"I just want to talk," he said. "Please."

And maybe it was foolish, but part of me wanted to hear what he would say when he didn't have the distance of a phone line to hide behind. So I said yes. I told myself it was closure I needed. But the truth was simpler. I missed him.

I refused to meet at his house. So I picked a small café not far from Pilsen. I made sure he arrived before me I only left my house when he texted saying he had arrived at the café. He stood up when I walked in.

"You look..."

 I stopped him right there. "Don't." 

He smiled faintly, like he deserved that. We sat, a hot cup of coffee and glazed cinnamon rolls already served. He remembered what I liked, of course. He always remembered the details that didn't matter. Then, I said.

"You said you wanted to talk. So talk."

 He  nodded, looked down for a moment, then met my eyes. "I don't want to lose you. That's the truth."

His declaration warmed my heart a little. "Then what do you want?" I asked quietly.

He hesitated. "I just want you, I still don't want to do casual. We have a connection. Let's just go back to how things were.."

I stared at him. "You mean without commitment."

 He  sighed. "Labels are unnecessarily what matters is how we feel about each other."

"And how exactly do you feel about me?" I asked.

"I like you a lot."

 Not what I was hoping to hear.

 "Not love?" I asked fiddling with my hands.

He leaned forward, elbows on the table. "I've been through it. Marriage, lawyers, custody, all of it. I'm not doing that again. So I'm not going to sit here and make promises I can't keep. I enjoy our time together, I enjoy what we have."

 I took a sip of my coffee.  "And what am I supposed to be?" I asked. "Something that fits around the life and family you've built for yourself?" 

It's not that I wanted him to get me hitched. I'm not the marrying type anyway. I just wanted some form of reassurance, that I won't be swept aside, after investing my emotions into what we have. The truth was, I might be in love with him, and the thought of him with another woman is poison to my heart. But there's no way I was  blatantly admitting that to him like some love sick puppy. He reached over the table to hold my hands and said,

"you're already in my life."

I smiled. There and then, I knew exactly what I was going to do.

After that dinner, I decided I wasn't going to store all my eggs in one basket. I would keep Crest around, but I was taking back my efforts. I would keep my options open. I don't see why I should commit to him when he going around with arm candies. Thankfully, work got busier. And somewhere in between, the chopping, the cooking and plating, I started socializing and saying yes again. To invitations, to company, to men who looked at me with curiosity. None of them were serious. A wine bar with a music journalist. A walk along the lake with a teacher, Dinner with a man who owned a bookstore and asked about my favorite childhood meal. They were all kind and uncomplicated. Although, I hate to admit that none of these men compared to Crest, but I was having fun.

Crest and I still had our thing going on. Except now I didn't jump at every of his invitation or return his calls every time I missed it. I kept it simple, just like he wanted. Cherry had asked me severally why I didn't just walk away. Well, feelings just don't disappear. Regardless of our situation, I found comfort knowing I still had him in my life. As twisted as that sounds.