Chapter 16

Freya’s POV

The house was unusually quiet when we returned. Lucy and I walked through the front door, and the soft echo of our footsteps on the hardwood floor made it feel like we were stepping into a memory—one of those that clung to the walls long after the people had moved on. The air felt a little too still, a little too expectant.

Lucy slipped off her shoes and headed toward the kitchen, muttering something about needing juice. I lingered in my bed room, staring at the half-drawn curtains filtering in the afternoon sun, casting slanted stripes across the rug. I was still trying to breathe through the whirlwind of the past few days when I heard the knock.

It wasn’t loud. Just a subtle, polite tap. But I knew who it was before I opened the door.

It was Brandon.

He stood there, looking far too put together for someone who claimed to be "just dropping by." His dark eyes scanned me, lingering for half a second too long before he spoke.

“Freya, can we talk?”

I hesitated but stepped aside, letting him in. His cologne floated in after him, familiar and grounding in a way I wasn’t sure I liked anymore.

He didn’t sit. Just hovered near the edge of the coffee table like he couldn’t quite decide if he wanted to stay or run. I stayed standing too, folding my arms over my chest.

“What is it?” I asked.

He didn’t look at me right away. Instead, his eyes flicked around the room like he was searching for the right words in the corners of the ceiling. Finally, he said, “About Brian showing up here the other day.”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“He was trespassing and I want to get the cops involved.”

I arched a brow. “He didn't break anything. He did raise his voice but he was more angry at God knows what.”

Brandon let out a sharp breath, somewhere between disbelief and frustration. “Freya, that’s not the point. He came here. Uninvited. After everything he’s done—”

“I know what he did, Brandon,” I snapped, sharper than I meant to. I exhaled, trying again, quieter this time. “I know.”

There was a pause. The kind that settles in the throat and makes it hard to speak.

“So,” he said, voice tight, “do you want to press charges or not?”

I blinked at him. “No. I don’t.”

He tilted his head, arms folding across his chest now too. “Why not?”

“Because it’s not worth it.”

His jaw flexed. “Or because you still care about him?”

The question hit me like cold water. I didn’t answer right away. Not because I didn’t know, but because the truth was tangled up in too many layers of pain and history and regret. My silence stretched, thick and damning.

Brandon saw it for what it was—or what he thought it was.

“I knew it,” he said bitterly. “You still have feelings for him.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” he snapped, taking a step closer. “You don’t want to file a complaint. You let him in. You talked to him. What else am I supposed to think?”

“You’re supposed to trust me.”

“Trust you?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You mean the way you trusted Brian when you were still friends with his wife who happened to be your best friend? Or the way you trusted him when he they were both lying to you?”

“That’s different!”

“How?” he demanded. “How is it different?”

“Because I’m not the one who cheated!” I shouted. “I didn’t lie to anyone. I didn’t marry someone else while stringing along the woman I said I loved. That was him, not me.”

Brandon shook his head, expression carved from something harder than frustration. “You may not have cheated, Freya. But you’re still holding on to him. And I don’t know what that says about us and the family were about to build.”

That stopped me cold. My throat tightened.

Just then, Lucy walked in, holding two glasses of juice and wearing that soft expression that meant she definitely heard more than she should have.

“Am I interrupting something?” she asked.

Brandon and I both replied at the same time, automatic and in unison: “No.”

Brandon handed me a tight look, then turned on his heel and walked toward the door.

He didn’t slam it, but the sound of it closing still felt like a final word.

Lucy set the juice down on the table and took a seat beside me. For a moment, she didn’t say anything. Just sipped her drink and watched me out of the corner of her eye like she was weighing how much truth I could handle.

I beat her to it.

“Go ahead,” I said bitterly. “Say what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not here to interfere in your relationship drama,” she replied carefully. “But you shouldn’t blame Brandon for feeling the way he does about Brian.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Really.”

Lucy didn’t flinch. “Yeah. Really. Because, Freya, you’re still entertaining your ex. The same ex who cheated on you. Who married your best friend. Now you're pregnant for someone else and more even married, you should not still be entertaining his gimmicks.”

The truth, laid out like that, sounded more absurd than ever. But also painfully accurate.

My voice dropped. “You’re supposed to be my friend. Are you really taking his side?”

Lucy looked at me squarely. “I’m on the side of logic. And, well… the truth.”

It was like being slapped with silk—soft, but still a slap.

I leaned back on the couch, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes. “You think I want this? You think I want to still feel anything when Brian looks at me like the past wasn’t lit on fire? I don't love him but there's still something there, he still meant something to me before all of this.”

“No,” Lucy said. “But I think you haven’t let go. Not really.”

I didn’t answer. Because I wasn’t sure I could deny it. Not after the way my heart reacted the second Brian had stood in that doorway. Not after the way Brandon had looked at me—like he already knew the answer I was too afraid to give.

“I’m not choosing him,” I said eventually, voice thin.

“But you haven’t chosen Brandon either,” Lucy said gently.

That stung. Not because it was cruel. But because it was true.

I thought back to the moments I’d shared with Brandon—the quiet dinners, the laughter, the sense of calm he brought into my chaotic world. And yet, there was always a part of me watching the door. Waiting for the past to come knocking again.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted.

Lucy took my hand and squeezed it. “Then figure it out. Before you lose someone who actually wants to be there for you.”

I looked down at our joined hands and nodded.

The silence that followed wasn’t heavy this time. It was filled with the weight of decisions not yet made, of truths that had finally been spoken. Maybe it was the start of something—healing, perhaps. Or maybe it was just another pause before the next storm.

Either way, I knew I couldn’t keep living in limbo.

Not if I wanted a future that didn’t resemble the wreckage of my past.