Page 109 of When the Storm Breaks
I try to let it go. Try to wash it off.
The sledgehammer.
The crack in the glass.
The moment that broke through the warmth we’d built over the past few days.
I try to forget how happiness had just started to feel real—right before something darker took its place.
Chapter 33
Calla
We spend the next few days like that, me and Haiyden, slipping into a quiet rhythm that’s just ours. We sleep, we eat, we fuck.
The mornings start the same. Before I can even reach for my own, Haiyden sets a cup of coffee in front of me. The steam curls up—warm and weightless—like the space we’ve settled into. We leave the hush of the empty bar behind in the early afternoon, slipping out before the night rush begins.
At night, his apartment feels quieter than mine, even with a movie on in the background—one neither of us is really watching.
We don’t talk about it, but we’ve fallen into something steady. Something unspoken. It just happens, effortless, like an agreement we never had to make.
The pile of his sweatshirts draped over the back of my desk chair keeps growing. When I pull one on, it smells like him. A simple kind of comfort. I don’t ask why he keeps giving them to me, and I don’t bring up giving them back.
Sometimes he talks about music. Sometimes I tell him about theplaces I want to go. We don’t talk aboutus, but I feel it anyway—in the way he watches me when he thinks I don’t notice. In the way I stretch my legs across his lap without thinking, and instead of moving, he just hooks a hand around my ankle, holding me there.
When we watch movies, I end up curled into his side, my feet tucked beneath his legs. He plays with the edge of my sweatshirt sleeve—the one I stole from him—absentmindedly, like it’s second nature.
Some nights, he tries to teach me origami, but I never make it past the first few folds. Some nights, he maps my body with practiced hands, unfurling me until I’m a sweaty, whimpering mess. Some nights, we talk until I fall asleep mid-sentence. Some nights, I drift off against his shoulder before the movie ends.
He almost never wakes me.
Almost always carries me to bed.
I tell myself this is easy, that it doesn’t mean anything. But then he looks at me like that—like I belong—and I stop believing my own lie.
I don’t know what this is. But I know I don’t want it to end.
A few days pass like that.
Until Chase comes home.
I’m curled up in Haiyden’s apartment, wrapped in his sweatshirt and his arms, when the door flies open with a loud, “Daddy’s home!”
I jolt, twisting toward the sound—just in time to see Chase in the doorway.
He doesn’t speak at first. Just takes me in, gaze bouncing between me and Haiyden. His expression is unreadable. His mouth twitches, like he’s fighting back a smile.
Then, finally, he lets out a quiet laugh—part amusement, partsomething else.
Instinctively, I pull the hoodie tighter around me. A reflex I don’t fully understand.
But in that moment, one thing settles over me, quiet and certain:
Whatever this is between me and Haiyden—
It’s not just ours anymore.
Chapter 34
