Prologue
Maya
The morning light crept softly, like it didn’t want to scare us awake.
It filtered through the thin curtains of Cameron’s apartment, turning the walls gold and catching on the edge of the kitchen counter. I lay there for a second longer than necessary, listening to the hum of the city and the steady rhythm of his breathing beside me. There was comfort in it, it was dangerous, unfamiliar, and warm.
I didn’t usually stay the night. Never. The last boy I’ve stayed the night with was my ex. I especially rarely felt this… hopeful afterward.
Cameron slipped out of bed quietly, or at least tried to. I smiled into the pillow when I heard the soft thud of a cabinet closing, then another. The faint clink of glass. The sound of effort. It felt domestic in a way that made my chest ache.
When he came back 30 minutes later, he was holding a paper bag and two cardboard coffee cups.
“Don’t judge me,” he said, a crooked grin pulling at his mouth. “My fridge is basically empty. Like… criminally empty.”
I sat up, tugging the sheet around me. “You bought breakfast?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Seemed easier.”
Easier. Not meaningless.
He handed me a coffee and we ate on the edge of the bed, knees brushing, sharing pancakes that were a little too sweet and bacon that snapped between our teeth. He told me a story about a race he’d filmed last summer, exaggerated the chaos until I laughed loud enough to surprise myself. I told him about my dad, just a little—how he used to wake me up early on Sundays to watch races, how the sound of engines still felt like home.
Cameron listened to me. Like really listened. His eyes didn’t drift. He didn’t interrupt. That felt like something. When I checked the time, panic flickered in my chest. “I should go. I work tonight.”
He nodded easily. Too easily. “Yeah. Of course.”
At the door, he hesitated, hand on the knob. “This was fun, Maya.”
Fun. And still not anything.
“Yeah,” I said, heart doing something stupid. “It was.”
He smiled once more before opening the door, the hallway swallowing him up as I stepped outside. I walked away with coffee still warm in my hands and a quiet certainty settling into my bones.
I thought breakfast meant he cared. I thought staying meant something. I thought I’d see him again.
But what I didn’t know yet is that this was the moment I’d replay the most not because it was beautiful, but because it was where I got it all wrong. And where everything started to break.
