Chapter 1 — Okay.

-POV Derby

The message came at 9:47 PM and killed two years in ten seconds.

I think you deserve to know.

Three cold sentences from a girl I’d never met. Rian had been fucking her for eight months. Eight months of him coming home late, smiling at his phone, telling me “it’s just work” while I kept convincing myself the cracks in us were normal. I wasn’t stupid. I’d seen the signs. I just chose not to name them, because naming them meant admitting I was the second choice again.

Story of my life.

My mom used to look exhausted every time I needed too much from people. With Rian, things were supposed to feel stable.

Somewhere along the way, stable turned into me disappearing right in front of him.

I read the message three times. Then I typed one word — Okay. — and hit send before I could delete it and replace it with something uglier. I wasn’t going to cry in the apartment that still smelled like his cologne. If I stayed there any longer, I was going to fall apart for real.

So I grabbed my leather jacket — the one he always hated — and walked out into the night.

I didn’t want to get drunk and forget. I wanted to feel something sharp enough to cut through the numbness. The first drink burned clean — that I could still choose. That someone could still choose me, even if it was only for one night.

The bar was three blocks away. I pushed the door open and ordered whatever was strongest. The first drink burned clean. By the second drink, the words slipped out before I could stop them.

“He cheated.”

The words sounded ugly the second they left my mouth.

He was sitting two stools away. Not loud. Not pretending to be busy. Just… still. The kind of still that made everyone around him lower their volume without realizing it. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, calm, but there was an edge underneath it — his voice stayed calm, but there was something underneath it that made me sit up straighter without meaning to.

“How long did you know something was wrong?”

I answered him way too easily after that. I told him everything in fragments. When the bartender came back with his refill, the guy actually hesitated for half a second before setting the glass down — like even the bartender could tell he wasn’t the kind of man people interrupted casually.

He didn’t offer pity. He didn’t judge. He simply said, quiet and sure, “That’s the door finally closing.”

That should’ve been the moment I walked away. Instead, I stayed.

For the first time in two years, He looked at me like I wasn’t hard to deal with. He didn’t try to fix me. He just stayed — calm, steady, like my broken pieces didn’t scare him at all.

I told myself it was the alcohol. The pain. The revenge I needed against Rian.

The worst part was how badly I wanted him to keep looking at me like that.

I wanted to be chosen — even if it meant choosing the wrong thing. Even if it destroyed me.

So when he stood up and left cash on the bar without counting it, I followed. When the elevator rose and he stood close enough that I could smell that clean woodsy scent, I didn’t step back. When he waited one beat at his door, giving me the out I hadn’t asked for, I still walked in.

Because for once I wasn’t the one being left behind.

For once, I wasn’t waiting for someone to leave first.

That night his hands were slow, deliberate. He touched me like he had all the time in the world and like he wasn’t in a hurry to get past me. At one point he paused right before pushing inside me — eyes locked on mine, completely still — like he wanted me completely awake for what was about to happen. Then he moved, deep and controlled, setting a slow rhythm that pulled every sound out of me before I could hold it back. He watched every reaction like he was memorizing it, like he understood this was already becoming more complicated than it should’ve been.

For a few stolen hours, I let myself drown in it. In the weight of his body, the heat of his skin, the way he finished my broken sentences with his mouth on mine.

I let myself believe I was enough and let myself believe I was chosen.

And for one reckless, beautiful, stupid night… I was.

Until morning came.

For the moment I opened my eyes, I felt it — that quiet, creeping unease. Like leaving would be harder than walking in had been.

Like this wasn’t the end of the mistake.

It was only the beginning.

End of Chapter 1