When Amelia started her car, she realized that she didn't know if she intended to drive back to Colton's place or to her own apartment.

All of her work equipment was at her place, but it wasn't as if she needed any of that on a Saturday. And yet despite having no particular need to go there, she found herself craving the familiarity of being in her old space even if it was starting to look empty as her belongings slowly trickled out to Colton's. One of the more unfortunate side effects of being such an anxiety-prone person was that it was extremely difficult to let go of her comfort zone, her safety net, completely. No matter how unsatisfied with where she was now and excited she was about where she was headed, letting go of the old and embracing the new was destined to feel like she had given up a piece of her identity, her very being.

And so, feeling like she'd had enough excitement for one morning, Amelia returned to where she knew best. She rolled down the windows as she drove down the twisted roads that led away from the nature preserve and back towards the heart of town, enjoying the fresh air that brushed along her cheekbones like a lover's gentle fingers. A creature of habit, she pulled into the same parking space she always used in front of her apartment building and double-checked that she'd locked her car behind her before she went inside.

It was a little strange to be in her own home with some of her belongings missing, but if she was willing to suspend just a little bit of disbelief, she could pretend that everything was still here. Nothing that Colton already had duplicates of had been moved yet, so the majority of her furniture remained in place. And her decor still hung on the walls—they still hadn't agreed on where he was willing to let her add some of her own artistic flair to his place. She didn't have to acknowledge that her bookshelves were empty, or that only half of her clothes were here while the other half was exploding out of a suitcase in his closet. This afternoon would have been a good time to continue packing things away—she only had a few more weeks before her lease was up and she'd have to be out of here for good—but Amelia told herself that she was too tired for that right now.

A nagging voice in the back of her mind (that sounded suspiciously like her mother's) gnawed at her, telling her that her stubbornness about moving on meant that she was making a mistake. But wasn't she allowed to be nervous about things that were good for her? Wasn't that just part of the human experience? She often found herself missing him when she wasn't with him, so why not go be with him?

It would hit her eventually that there were so, so many reasons why she shouldn't be with him, but at present, she was still wholly immersed in her denial. She shut herself in the bathroom, thinking that she needed a shower to wash off any grime she'd accrued in the woods, and avoided her reflection in the mirror while she stripped out her clothes so that she wouldn't have to look at that bruise on her shoulder. The spot was still tender as she slid her bra strap off.

Once her body was scrubbed clean, she bundled herself up in a bathrobe and returned to the living room to grab her phone from where she'd left it on the coffee table. She had a text from her friend Natasha.

Wanna grab dinner tonight?

She suspected that Colton wouldn't be home until late, anyway. Being a cop was his day job, but his real passion was music, so he'd formed a band with his buddies a couple of years back. Thus far, that had mostly only amounted to playing covers of popular rock and country songs in bars and hanging out in someone's garage to "jam," but they were finally getting around to recording an EP of original music.

Amelia hadn't admitted out loud yet that she had mixed feelings about it. She loved that he was doing something he really cared about, but he was pouring so much time into it that there had only been a couple of nights since she started staying over at his place that he'd even come home before 10 or 11 p.m. It made her nervous that he was being so absent while they started this new phase of their relationship, and deep down, she knew that she resented the fact that he was choosing to go all-in on this album right after pushing for her to move in with him.

But at least she'd be free to have dinner with Nat.

Can we get Chinese?

of course

She imagined that she was always going to have a soft spot in her heart for Natasha, who'd been the first friend she made after moving back from Tampa last fall. Funnily enough, she'd actually met her and Colton at the same Christmas party, but he and Nat couldn't have been any less alike. She was a creative like Amelia, a free spirit. Born and raised in New York state, she'd moved south a few years ago right after graduating with a degree in illustration. When she and Amelia realized that they were both doing freelance art, they'd decided to team up and start a little studio practice together.

One might expect that they wouldn't want to hang out on the weekends when they saw each other five days a week—even Amelia herself was surprised by it. But Nat was just one of those people you didn't get tired of being around. She was great at listening when you wanted to be listened to and great at talking when you didn't feel like being the one to propel the conversation. She'd tell you what you needed to hear even if it wasn't what you wanted to hear but was capable of offering advice without judging you for whatever thing you'd screwed up.

And she didn't get irritated easily, so she wasn't mad when Amelia rushed into the restaurant ten minutes late because she'd fallen asleep on the couch and didn't wake up until she was already supposed to have left her apartment.

"Sorry," she panted as she slumped into the booth, having practically jogged into the restaurant. "It's been a weird day."

She started filling Natasha in on her interesting morning while the two of them skimmed through their menus (despite both already knowing what they wanted to order—they'd been here before) and waited for a server to come around. But before Amelia even really got around to mentioning Lily Myers, Nat curiously asked, "How's everything going with Colton?"

Amelia paused. How was it going? It was going alright, she supposed. She liked waking up next to someone else even if it was a little bit annoying when his alarm went off much earlier than she needed to be awake. She liked being taken care of, yet she would never like that he seemed to think that she wasn't very capable of taking care of herself. And though she liked the way he'd hold her when they snuggled up on the couch for a movie, she hated the way he'd grab her hard enough when he was angry that his fingertips left bruises painted on her skin like watercolor.

"Good," was all she said out loud. "It's good. How are things going with..."

She clamped her mouth shut when she realized that she'd completely forgotten the name of the boy Nat had started seeing last week. In a brave effort to put herself out there and meet someone new, she'd re-downloaded Tinder about a month ago for the first time since college, but none of the guys she'd matched with so far had been compelling enough to go on more than one or two dates with. They were on the third or fourth boy now and Amelia was starting to lose track of them.

"...Ashton...?" she guessed tentatively.

Nat chewed on the corner of her lip to hide her smirk; she thought Amelia's forgetfulness was funny.

"Asher," she corrected. "But good effort."

"I was close."

Natasha nodded, her red hair catching the light that emanated from the old lamp that hung above their table in such a way that it almost looked like fire when she moved.

"It's good," she echoed. "I mean, we've only been on one date so far, but I'm actually excited about seeing him again. I think we might go to the movies tomorrow."

Something that might have been envy pinched at Amelia's heart. She missed that feeling of dating someone so casually, the simple pleasure of just spending time with that someone you liked without stressing too much about what the future might look like for you together. In a way, she felt like she still should have been in that place with Colton. Like dating shouldn't have become so difficult so soon. But she supposed that was the price she had to pay for dating someone more than five years older than herself—in a few months, he'd be thirty. He knew what he wanted and she was trying her hardest to catch up, to be as certain about everything as he was. She wanted so desperately to be good enough for him, but she knew he was getting impatient and wasn't quite sure what he'd do to her if he snapped.

Maybe the easiest way forward is just to walk out, she thought, not for the first time. But she wasn't a quitter.

And Colton wasn't really someone you could just walk out on.

"Are you okay?" Nat asked, and it was only then that Amelia realized that she'd zoned out.

"Yeah. Sorry...it's been a weird day."

Natasha's eyebrows raised. "...You already said that. Are you sure you're alright?"

She wasn't sure that she was alright and yet also wasn't sure that anything was actually wrong in a way that it typically was not, so she simply steered their conversation away from Colton and towards the mystery of Lily Myers while they ordered and then inhaled their ramen. She told Nat about Henry and how she vaguely remembered meeting him at school once upon a time, though that now felt like decades ago rather than a few short years.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Amelia said with a hint of reluctance. If someone asked your permission to ask you something, the question that was then posited was practically guaranteed to make you uncomfortable.

"Are you going to tell Colton this?"

Confusion tugged at the edges of Amelia's lips as a frown. "This as in...?"

"This story. The way you're telling it to me."

As her eyes met Natasha's blue ones across the table, Amelia knew that they both understood what they were really talking about here, but they were both going to continue dancing around the subject as if they didn't.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Just..." Natasha suggested gingerly. "I would maybe make sure you don't accidentally frame it to sound like you're reuniting with an old friend, that's all."

Amelia could hardly be mad at her implications when she herself had already had the thought this morning that Colton was a jealous person, so why did she still feel the need to justify her behavior?

"It's really not like that," she clarified. "We were never even friends. I just sat behind him in a class one time."

"I know. And don't get me wrong—even if you were friends, you know I wouldn't care about that, right? I'm just trying to look out for you, that's all."

"I promise I can look out for myself," Amelia said in a way that was meant to be reassuring rather than defensive, though she quite frankly wasn't sure how it actually sounded.

"I know," Nat echoed quietly, her chin turning back downwards towards the table, like she wished it was possible to make eye contact with her soup so that she had a good excuse to look away from Amelia. "I'm just not sure that you will."

Amelia felt her jaw slacken, her lips loosening into a small o. But before she could think of anything else to say, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She had a text from Colton.

where are you? I just got home expecting you to be here, why didn't you tell me you were going somewhere?

"Shit," she muttered, her fingers already rapidly typing out an excuse for herself.

Sorry, went to dinner with Nat. I'll be there asap

She hadn't thought that this plan could backfire on her, that there was even a possibility he wouldn't go see his friends instead of her.

"I, um, I gotta go—can I Venmo you my half of the bill?"

Natasha's phone vibrated as Amelia said the word bill. Both of them went quiet, but when Amelia saw a text notification pop up on the lock screen, her heart sank. After a quick glance at it, Nat silently slid the phone across the table to her.

It's colton - is amelia with you?

"You should probably go."

"I'm sorry," Amelia mumbled, but she was already scrambling out of the booth.

Self-consciously, she tugged at the fabric of her shirt where it touched the sore spot on her shoulder.

"Where the hell were you?"

Amelia fought the compulsion to roll her eyes as she quietly closed the front door behind her. "Would you lower your voice? People are going to think we're fighting."

"Since when do you care so much what other people think?" he scoffed.

"Since when is it a problem for me to go to dinner with my best friend?"

She shouldn't have been fanning the flames—he was obviously a little bit drunk. She could see it in the languid, almost clumsy way he leaned against the couch; in the slow drifting of his eyes, which seemed incapable of fully focusing on any singular thing.

"I thought you'd be working on the album," she said, a little more carefully now, as she came over to lower herself onto the couch and tucked her legs to one side.

Perhaps they wouldn't fight if she didn't look like she wanted to fight, if she looked small instead of confrontational. His eyes were dark as they followed the movement of her body over to the sofa, then looked down at her when sat. He didn't join her, choosing instead to keep looming over her. Something in Amelia sensed that this was deliberate, but she made no effort to stop him.

"You never told me if you went to that search thing this morning."

"I went," she said plainly. "We didn't turn up anything–"

"–Who's we?"

"Everyone who was there—who else would I mean? Was there something in particular you wanted to know about?"

A low sigh slid out from between his teeth, the sort of disgruntled sigh that told her trouble was brewing. "Why do you always talk to me like that?"

She wasn't in the mood to argue or get hurt or deal with his groveling and apologies afterward, but the immediate problem was that she genuinely didn't know what he was referring to and therefore couldn't do much to de-escalate. "Like what?"

"Like I'm a child and not your fucking boyfriend."

There was another sign that he'd had one too many beers—Colton didn't actually curse that much when he wasn't intoxicated.

"Did you drive yourself home?" she questioned as calmly as she could.

"Why are you changing the subject?"

Her fingers fisted in the throw blanket. "Maybe because I don't want you wrapping your car around a tree? You can't keep doing this."

"I'm not doing anything," he scowled, gesturing vaguely with his hands on the word doing as if he were trying to mime something. "You're the one who's trying to pick a fight."

"I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings."

"If you care so much about my feelings then why won't you ever just tell me where the fuck you are?"

Amelia was chewing the inside of her mouth to stop herself from shouting. This was getting ridiculous. She never even went anywhere interesting! She was the most boring, most antisocial person she knew, and yet she apparently couldn't even venture so far as the park or the supermarket without puncturing his ego and thus propelling his paranoia.

She wanted so badly to ask who he was out drinking with. Instead, she told him again, "I don't want to fight."

It happened so quickly that she couldn't have stopped it. One second, he was standing up; the next, sitting across from her, his fingers yanking so tightly at the hair at the nape of her neck that she had no choice but to let him force her to look him in the eye. Amelia clenched her jaw to stop her lips from quivering.

"Just do it," she said as dully as she could manage. "Do whatever you're going to do so we can skip to the part at the end where we both apologize."

He shook his head at her, a sardonic smile marring his lips. "You're unbelievable."

"I'm just telling the truth."

He abruptly let go of her, which sent her head lolling back painfully until she caught herself. She was glaring at his back as he left the room, but once he was gone, a small sigh of relief fell out of her lips.

Amelia pulled her knees up to her chin, unsure of what she should do to pass the time while Colton cooled off. Maybe she should text Nat and let her know she was okay. The last thing she wanted was for her to get so worried that she came over here—or worse, called Amelia's parents. She tried to imagine what it would be like if her dad knocked on the door right now. Colton would smile sweetly and Michael would feel stupid for ever questioning if anything unusual was going on; his daughter's boyfriend was a good man, a morally upstanding person. He was a police officer, after all. Police officers didn't break the law. Amelia would stand off to the side, neither of them actually paying attention to what she had to say.

Eventually, she fired off a quick I'm ok text to Nat, then another one that said I'm sorry, and then aimlessly scrolled through her Twitter feed. She stayed there on the couch for who-knows-how-long, only getting up once she heard the shower turn on.

She had quickly developed a system for how she could get ready for bed while they'd been fighting. First, wait for him to get in the shower. Brush her teeth at the kitchen sink (she'd stuck a travel toothbrush and toothpaste in one of the drawers that he never opened). Change in the bedroom while he was still in the bathroom, then slip under the covers before he emerged.

Tonight, he stayed in the shower long enough that she could get away with pretending to have started drifting off to sleep. She listened to the routine sounds of him brushing his teeth, swishing mouthwash, spitting it out. Next, the bathroom door would creak open. She wouldn't be caught by surprise when the bedroom light turned off and his still-slightly-damp body pressed against her back, his arms snaking around her midsection.

And as he held her, she'd start to relax. She'd start to forget about the fight. That was her whole problem, wasn't it? That she still had the luxury of forgetting.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, "I'm so sorry, Amelia. You know I love you."

On like that it went, his lips touching somewhere on her skin after each apology. She stayed as still as possible, feigning sleep or at least such a deep state of drowsiness that she was incapable of responding. She could still faintly smell the alcohol on his breath even though he'd tried to get rid of it.

He eventually stopped kissing her, though his body was still writhed around hers in a way that made it difficult for her to get comfortable. Amelia stared up at the blank ceiling, listening for that steady rhythm of breaths that would let her know he was asleep. That everything had played out exactly like she knew it would.

To the darkness, to the air, she whispered, "I told you so."