Page 44 of Story Of My Heart

She tilts her head, her expression softening. “Especially then. Those breaks can make us who we are. They teach us about resilience, about depth. About our own capacity to heal and love again. It’s painful, but it’s also powerful, don’t you think?”

Her perspective is a balm, soothing in its simplicity and wisdom. Maybe there’s a strength to be found in this mess with Tate, a strength that comes from facing the pain rather than fleeing it. Even this ache has its place, carving out spaces within me that were previously untouched, teaching me the contours of my own heart. As she excuses herself to check on a guest, I’m left feeling a little less adrift, a little more anchored, even in the midst of my turmoil as I approach the cabin.

Steeling my spine, I open the door to find Tate sitting on the couch, aimlessly browsing on his phone. His suitcase and messenger bag rest neatly at his feet. Other than his body and his few belongings occupying the two square feet around him, there isn’t a single trace of him left inside. He obviously wants to get out of here just as much as I do.

“I thought we’d go back today,” he offers quietly and coolly, so much so that he sounds like an automated text-to-speech reader. I’m not sure what I wanted out of him, but it certainly wasn’t this. He’s acting like nothing happened between us at all, and that everything is just like when we got here. He hasn’t even bothered to ask where I was last night, or if I’m okay.

A whisper of white-hot anger skitters over my skin until I want to throw things.

“Fine with me,” I bite out, already walking to the bathroom. “I can be ready in five minutes.”

I pack silently and efficiently, trying to spend as little time in this cabin as I possibly can. Thinking about what happened here—and how I’ve been forever changed by it—leaves me with a hollow ache in my chest. I know that I’m visibly off, and I would make an attempt to act more normal if I thought that he noticed or cared. Tate has clearly decided to wear blinders today and to bury his head in the sand about it all. I’m sick of making the first move and being the only person to show my hand. If he wants this to get any better, he’s going to have to be the vulnerable one for a change.

But waiting for that is like waiting for a mountain to move.

The whole experience has left me absolutely demoralized, neither of us speaking a word as we load the car. Fallon gives me a pained look as I turn in the room key, noting the way her brother’s nose is buried in his phone screen. She gives me a hearty goodbye, and a hug so warm it brings tears to my eyes, before grunting out a perfunctory send-off to her brother with the politest of waves.

They don’t even hug.

The car ride is just as painful. Tate withdraws into the passenger seat, and I spend the entire drive wondering what it would be like to take any interstate exit other than my own, watching 35W scroll past the front windshield in a blur as we get closer and closer to our normal lives. I told Tate I wouldn’t quit, and I mean that, but I can’t imagine what our working relationship will possibly look like going forward, and how spending time with him won’t feel like eating ground glass.

I allow myself a glimmer of hope when we get back to the building and he steps inside the elevator with me. There’s a moment of silence while he gathers his thoughts, shuffling back and forth on his feet like he’s wrestling with himself and his impulses. It seems for all the world like an apology is forming on his lips. Instead, as the elevator slows to a stop and dings as we reach my floor, he awkwardly hands me my bag, running a hand through his hair and looking down at his phone.

A pause. “Are we on for our usual tonight? I’m thinking kung pao chicken and a movie rental? I can spring for both kinds of fried rice this time.”

So that’s it. Tate has decided that the past week hasn’t happened, and that he’s just going to do a soft reboot of our entire relationship. I can’t say I’m surprised, but it still hurts worse than I had expected.

“No. It isn’t our usual tonight, or any other night. I’m not your girlfriend—I’m not even your friend. I’m your assistant. My hours are nine to five. You can send me an email, but only if it’s urgent, and I’ll get back to you in the morning.” I storm out of the elevator, turning back just as the doors are closing in front of him. He has the audacity to look confused, but doesn’t attempt to back pedal. Delighting in his shocked expression, I toss over my shoulder, “Goodbye, Mr. Story. Enjoy your evening, sir. I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”

Not wanting Mrs. Gunderson and Johan to see a weak spot in my armor, I manage to keep my head high until I unlock the door and throw myself through it, dropping my bags in the entranceway and making a beeline for my couch. I kick off my shoes, not caring where they land, and then collapse face first into the cushions, letting out the sob I’ve been holding in for the last thirty five odd miles of interstate.

The sofa cushions muffle my cries as the reality crashes down on me like a brutal wave. Every shard of my shattered heart aches with the realization that the man I’ve allowed myself to love sees me as nothing more than a convenient fixture in his life, easily reset after what I thought was a breakthrough. It’s as if the person who laughed and shared secrets with him, who dared to believe that love might actually be within reach, was someone else—a foolish girl, naive enough to think she mattered. Now, left in the stark silence of my apartment, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to piece myself back together. How do I go back to being just Piper, his assistant, after glimpsing what it felt like to be Piper, his everything? The ache is relentless, a constant echo of what could have been, a reminder that perhaps for Tate, it never was.

I roll over after a minute or so, wiping the old mascara from my cheeks, and the first thing that catches my eye is that ridiculous private elevator. It suddenly fills me with rage at everything it stands for. I can’t believe Tate talked me into letting him have it installed. It’s the most absurd, boundary-defying request, and obviously allowing him that kind of intrusion into my personal life warped his sense of our relationship. Fumbling around at the side of the couch, my fingers find one of my discarded sneakers. I pick it up, and without another thought, I hurl it at the elevator doors, feeling a deep satisfaction at the dull metallic thud that it makes on contact.

I hope Tate heard it all the way upstairs, and wondered what it was.

It would be nice if he wondered about me at all.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tate

I used to love standing at my window in the morning, looking out at the street from behind my tinted glass, enjoying the orderly quiet of the spacious penthouse as I start my day. The quiet now feels eerie, the spaciousness feels like emptiness, and the order feels like sterility. Everywhere I look below me, I see people the size of ants. I can’t make out details from this high above them, but it doesn’t stop my imagination from running away from me. Every pair of shapes is a couple holding hands. Every cluster is a family, or a group of coworkers or friends, clutching their coffees and croissants as they head off to their day jobs. Regardless of who they actually are, they’re together, and I’m up here by myself.

I thought I was building myself a sanctuary, where I’d sit on my wealth like some medieval dragon, doing Scrooge McDuck dives into piles of gold coins and bathing in Dom Perignon. When I compare it to the genuine internal warmth I felt sitting at the firepit at Sunset Lake, burning my marshmallows and watching Piper magically whack beer bottles open with her bare hands, it feels like a prison.

One week of fake dating has done something to me. It’s made me soft. Maudlin, even. Where is the old Tate Story? The one who never believed in love at all, and never thought about much more in the morning than the Dow Jones and which small batch beans I was going to grind? That guy needs to make a reappearance and save me from myself.

I shoot a glance at my watch, noting that it’s already five minutes to nine, and I haven’t heard a peep from Piper. The thought distresses me, and I instinctively make my way to the sofa, perching on the edge of a cushion so I can watch the elevator. When nine o’clock passes and no elevator arrives, I consider sending out a search party. My thumb hovers over my lock screen, ready to dial her number, when I hear a knock at the door.

Immediately jumping to the worst possible conclusion, I find my heart in my throat as I trudge over to it, not wanting to see what waits for me on the other side. My hand trembles as I reach for the knob, pulling it open to find…

Piper.

Her hair is pulled back in a severe bun, and she isn’t wearing much makeup behind her glasses. It’s as if she’s tried to make herself look as neutral and unappealing as possible.

“What are you doing?”

---