All Chapters of One night wasn't enough : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

I told myself I am fine the whole drive home.I am fine. My father was just surprised to see me. People look strange when they are surprised. It does not mean anything. My mother was just having an off day, struggling to find words, it happens to everyone. The lunch was just lunch and the car park was just a car park and I am reading into things because I am tired and because the last two weeks of my life have been quietly unraveling in ways that have my nervous system permanently on high alert.I am fine.I got home, dropped my bag by the door, poured a glass of water and stood in my kitchen drinking it and being fine.Then I go and open my laptop.I don't even know what to type first.I sat on my couch with the laptop open and I just looked at the search bar for a moment like it is going to tell me what I am looking for. I don't know what I am looking for. That is the honest truth. I just know that my mother started three sentences and finished none of them and asked me if I had eve

His apartment is warm when he opens the door and something smells good from the kitchen and he is in a plain white t-shirt and sweats and somehow looks better than anyone has a right to look standing in a doorway on a Saturday night."You actually came," he says."I said I would.""You say a lot of things." He said moving back towards the kitchen. "Sit down. I'd be right back give me ten minutes I dropped my bag and kicked off my shoes and sat on his couch letting myself breathe for the first time today.Ten minutes later he comes out with two plates and sets them on the coffee table and sits beside me and we eat.That is it. We just eat.He made pasta, something simple with tomatoes and garlic and fresh basil, and it is genuinely good."Where did you learn to cook," I asked"My mother. She had a rule that everyone in the house had to learn at least five meals properly before they left for university.""That's a good rule.""I thought it was torture at the time." He twirls pasta ont

Derek's voice note sits in my head all week.Tell Caleb I said hey.completely casual,like it was nothing.Like he just happened to know Caleb had been around.Maybe he did just happen to know.By Sunday morning I have stopped thinking about it because Sunday means dinner which means Caleb will be there which means I need to focus on being a normal person who has a normal relationship with her brother's best friend.Lena texts at ten.Still coming today right.Right. Lena is coming to Sunday dinner. My mother invited her twice and Lena said yes both times and I said great because at the time it seemed like a good idea. Now, sitting on my bed thinking about navigating a table that contains my mother, my father, Derek, Caleb, my feelings about Derek's voice note and Lena's extremely perceptive eyes, it seems like the worst idea anyone has ever had.Yes, I text back. See you there.I get dressed slowly and tell myself it will be fine.Lena arrives before me which should not be possible bu

Three days after the photo incident Caleb texts me.Free tonight? Nothing attached to them. No reference to the photo or the way things felt slightly different when I left his apartment or the fact that we have not spoken since.Yes, I text back.Nothing attached to that either.His apartment feels the same when I arrive. Same low light, same easy warmth, same city doing its thing through the floor to ceiling windows. He opens the door in a grey t-shirt with a dish cloth over his shoulder because he has been cooking, which is just something Caleb does on a weekday evening like it is nothing."Hey," he says."Hey," I say back.We do not hug immediately the way we have started doing. There is a half second where we both register that and neither of us says anything about it. He steps back to let me in. I take off my shoes. We move to the kitchen where something smells good on the stove."Sit," he says. "Ten minutes."I sit at the counter on the stool I have come to think of as mine. I

I parked outside my building and sat in the car.The message is still on my screen.You should ask Caleb who I am before this goes any further.No name. No context. Nothing attached to the number when I search it. My first instinct is to call Caleb.My second instinct, arriving approximately three seconds later, is not to. Because calling Caleb means showing him the message, means having a conversation about who might be sending it means opening a door I am not sure either of us is ready to walk through on the same night we just said true things to each other on a pavement in the cold.So I sat in my car.I read the message four more times.Then I screenshot it, save it to a folder, check the number twice on two different search platforms, find absolutely nothing attached to it, so I closed everything down, went upstairs, brushed my teeth and went to lay downI stared at the ceiling for a long time.“Wrong number”, I tell myself in the morning.Someone who has the wrong contact saved