The Space Between

Samantha Jones

The newspaper crinkled in my trembling fingers as I stared at the announcement. Engaged. The word blurred, then sharpened again, mocking me.

“What The Fuck!”

My voice bounced off the walls of my empty apartment, swallowed by the silence that had become my only companion these past nine months. The afternoon light slanted through the half-closed blinds, casting long shadows across the living room—across the coffee table littered with empty glasses, the dusty shelves of books I’d once been proud of, the fireplace that hadn’t seen a flame since he left.

It had only been nine months since I signed those fucking divorce papers, and there he was—grinning up at me from the society page with some woman draped over his arm as if I’d never existed. Like our eight years together meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.

My hands shook as I read the announcement again. Mr Jack Jones and Miss Penelope Hayes announce their engagement. Penelope. Even her name sounded pristine. Untouchable. The opposite of me, sitting here in yesterday’s clothes with brandy on my breath and a heart that hadn’t stopped bleeding since he walked out.

Both sadness and anger churned in my stomach, a toxic cocktail that burned up my throat. I snatched the glass from the side table—the one I’d been nursing since noon, or maybe since yesterday, I’d lost track—and tilted it back. The last dregs of brandy seared my throat, but not enough. Nothing was ever enough anymore. I grabbed the bottle from the floor, my fingers slick against the glass, and refilled without bothering to set the glass down.

The amber liquid caught the light, throwing warm gold across my trembling hand. I stared at it, then at his face in the newspaper, then back at the glass.

“As I said,” I muttered to the empty room, raising my glass in a bitter toast that no one would witness, “it’s only been nine months since I signed those fucking divorce papers.”

The brandy sloshed as I slammed the glass down. A few drops spilt across the newspaper, soaking into Jack’s grinning face. I watched the liquid darken the paper and felt a vicious little thrill. Until a flashback of that night crept back into my mind.

Flashback To That Night

The living room had felt different then. Smaller. Suffocating. The air had been thick with something I couldn’t name—a tension that coiled in my chest as I watched him walk through the door an hour early. The setting sun had painted everything in shades of orange and gold, the way it always did at that time of day, but instead of warmth, it felt like a fire about to consume everything I’d built.

He’d come home early—the first red flag I’d missed, the first crack in the perfect picture I’d been so desperate to believe in. Instead of his usual kiss, the brush of his lips against my cheek, the way his hands would find my waist automatically, he handed me a plain white envelope. No hello. No warmth. Just that stiff rectangle of paper between us, his fingers carefully avoiding mine.

I remember the sound my heels made against the hardwood as I followed him up the stairs. Click. Click. Click like a countdown. Jack’s footsteps were heavier, deliberate, already moving away from me even as I raced to catch up. The house had never felt so large, the hallway never so long.

When I tore the envelope open at the top of the stairs, my fingers fumbling against the seal, the world tilted.

Divorce papers.

The words swam before my eyes, the legal jargon blurring into meaningless shapes. My breath came in short, sharp gasps. I gripped the bannister to keep from falling.

“Jack.” My voice cracked, splintering like dry wood. “What is this all about?”

He didn’t look at me. He just walked into our walk-in closet—the one we’d redesigned together, the one with my dresses hanging beside his suits—and pulled down one of his bags. I watched in numb disbelief as he methodically folded shirts, the muscles in his jaw working, but his eyes fixed on the task. Like he was packing for a business trip, not dismantling our life.

“I’m sorry, Sam.” He finally turned, and his face was a mask I didn’t recognise. The man I’d married, the man who’d held me when my first book got rejected, who’d danced with me in the kitchen at midnight, who’d whispered forever against my skin—he was gone. In his place was a stranger with cold eyes and a voice that didn’t tremble. “I can’t lie to you anymore. I’m in love with someone else.”

The words hit me like a physical blow. I sank onto the edge of our bed, the mattress dipping beneath my weight, and watched my husband of eight years strip his clothes from the closet. From our home. From me.

My fingers dug into the comforter—the expensive one we’d picked out together in that little boutique downtown, the one he’d said reminded him of the ocean. My nails left crescents in the fabric.

But things were good. The thought clawed at my chest, desperate and confused. I just got your second book published. It’s a bestseller.

My mind raced back through the past year. The late nights we’d spent exploring new kinks, the way our sex life had crackled with fresh electricity since I’d started writing again. He’d been so eager. So hungry for it. I’d thought it meant desire. Passion. Connection.

I’d thought I was giving him everything he wanted.

So what changed?

The question curdled into something darker, sharper, as I watched him zip up his bag.

Or did I bring something out in him—something he felt he had to explore with someone else?

“Please, Jack.” I hated the way my voice broke, the way it came out small and desperate. The way my eyes burned with tears, I was fighting to hold back. “I don’t believe that you don’t love me anymore. I love you. Please don’t leave me like this.”

He stopped. For a moment, something flickered in his eyes—guilt, maybe, or regret—but it was gone before I could name it. He pulled off his wedding band, slow and deliberate, the gold catching the soft light of the bedroom. I watched it slide over his knuckle, watched him hold it for a moment as if weighing it in his palm, and then he placed it on the dresser.

The soft clink of gold against wood sounded like a gunshot.

He walked as he spoke, his footsteps already retreating. “Don’t make this an issue, Sam. Just sign the papers.”

I watched him go. Through the bedroom door, past the framed photos on the hallway wall—our wedding, our first vacation, a hundred captured smiles that now felt like lies. Down the stairs. The front door opened. Closed.

Silence.

I sat there for what felt like hours, staring at the wedding band on the dresser, the empty closet, the bed that suddenly felt too big, too empty, too cruel.

The reminder of how I fell apart jolts me back to the present as the memory dissolved like smoke, leaving me alone again with my brandy and that damn newspaper. The afternoon had faded while I was lost in the past; now the room was steeped in twilight, shadows pooling in the corners, the only light coming from the streetlamp outside that cast pale yellow stripes across the floor.

I stared at the photo of Jack and his new fiancée. Her hair was blonde and perfect. Her smile was wide and confident. They were at some fancy restaurant, a bottle of champagne between them, her hand resting on his chest like she had every right to be there.

The anger that had been simmering low in my belly for nine months finally boiled over, scorching through my veins until I could taste copper on my tongue. My hands trembled. My jaw ached from clenching. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw something. I wanted to drive to whatever address he was living at now and—

I poured another glass and gulped it down, letting the burn ground me, anchor me, pull me back from the edge of the darkness I’d been living in for so long.

Then I shoved off the sofa. The room spun for a moment—too much brandy, not enough food, nine months of neglect catching up with me—but I steadied myself against the armrest and forced my legs to move.

I caught my reflection in the mirror across the room, the one I’d been avoiding for months, and my breath hitched.

"God. When did I start looking so old?"

Dark circles carved hollows beneath my eyes, purple and bruised-looking against skin that had lost its warmth. My hair hung limp and neglected, the ends splitting and the colour fading. The robe I wore—the same one I’d been wearing for days, maybe weeks—sagged off my shoulders like a second skin I’d forgotten to shed. I’d lost weight I didn’t have to lose; my collarbones jutted out sharply, my wrists looked fragile.

I barely recognised the woman staring back at me.

I raised my hand to my face, and the woman in the mirror did the same. My fingers touched my cheek, feeling the dryness, the hollows, the tracks of tears I hadn’t even noticed I’d shed.

Something shifted in my chest. A crack of light in all that suffocating darkness. A flicker of the woman I used to be—the one who wore red dresses and laughed too loud and kissed strangers in bars because she could, because she was alive, because the world was hers for the taking.

I hear Nancy’s words screaming in my head.

Get the fuck out of this house and start living again.

Months. Months I’d locked myself away, letting the world spin on without me while I drowned in brandy and bitterness. The blinds had stayed drawn. The phone had stayed silent except for Nancy’s calls, which I’d let go to voicemail. The woman in the mirror had faded a little more each day, and I’d let her, because it was easier than facing the truth.

But Jack had moved on. Jack was engaged. Jack was living his life while I was slowly dying in this apartment, becoming a ghost in my own story.

No more.

I thought of Nancy. Of the texts I’d ignored, the dinners I’d cancelled, the times she’d shown up with takeout, and I’d pretended not to be home. She’d never stopped trying. Even when I’d pushed her away, she’d kept reaching. She was the one constant in my life, the only person who had seen me at my worst and stayed anyway.

I picked up my phone from the coffee table, the screen lighting up with notifications I’d been ignoring for days. My fingers moved before I could talk myself out of it.

“Hey girl, want to go out tonight?”

I stared at the message, my heart pounding. What if she said no? What if she was done waiting for me to get my shit together?

The response came within seconds. Not a text—a call.

My thumb hovered over the screen. I took a breath. I answered.

“You have to be shitting me.” Nancy’s voice exploded through the speaker, equal parts disbelief and delight. “Sam, are you actually asking me to go out with you?”

I laughed. It was a rusty, unfamiliar sound, like a door that hadn’t been opened in years finally creaking on its hinges. I could picture the exact expression on her face—eyes wide, mouth half-open, her whole body probably vibrating with excitement.

“Is that a yes?”

“Hell yes.” Her voice pitched higher, the way it always did when she was about to drag me into trouble. “And let me just tell you one thing—it’s about fucking time. Give me half an hour, and I’ll be at your place. We’ll take an Uber.” A pause. I could practically hear her grin. “Wear something sexy. None of those morbid dresses you’ve been hiding in.”

I glanced at my reflection again—the robe, the hollow eyes, the ghost of who I used to be. Something sparked in my chest. Something that felt dangerously close to hope.

“Well,” I said, a slow smile spreading across my face, “let me just say I’m tired of moping around at home. I need a release, and at this stage...” I let the pause hang, my grin widening. “Anyone will do.”

Nancy’s laughter crackled through the phone, bright and familiar and exactly what I needed to hear.

“That’s my girl. See you in thirty.”

I stood naked in front of my closet, water still beading on my skin from the shower. The bathroom behind me was still fogged with steam, the scent of vanilla and something floral clinging to the air—the first time in months I’d used anything other than the cheap soap that required no effort.

I pushed hangers aside, my fingers brushing through fabric that felt unfamiliar. The oversized sweaters I’d been drowning in. The funeral-black dresses matched my mood. The soft, shapeless things I’d wrapped around myself like armour, like camouflage, like a promise to the world that I didn’t want to be seen.

My fingers brushed against something I hadn’t touched in years. I pulled it out and held it up, letting it unfurl.

The red dress.

It was shorter than I remembered. Slinkier. The kind of dress that made promises. I’d bought it for our fifth anniversary, back when I still believed in forever. I’d worn it once, to a rooftop bar where Jack had whispered in my ear that I was the most beautiful woman in the room, that he couldn’t keep his hands off me, that he’d never wanted anyone the way he wanted me.

Lies. All of it lies.

But the dress still fit. And tonight, it would mean something new.

I held it against my body and met my reflection’s eyes. The woman in the mirror was still pale, still too thin, still bearing the scars of the past nine months. But there was something else there now. A glint. A challenge.

“This is the one.” My voice was steady. “If this dress doesn’t get me ass-fucked tonight, then—”

A knock cut me off, sharp and insistent.

I yanked the dress over my head, the fabric cool and familiar against my skin, and padded to the door. My heart was pounding. My hands were shaking. But I was smiling.

Nancy Bishop

When I opened the door, Nancy stood on the threshold in a tight black number that hugged every curve, her blonde hair freshly curled, her lipstick a perfect crimson slash. Her mouth was already open to deliver some smart remark—

Then she stopped.

Her eyes travelled the length of me, slow and appreciative. Her lips parted. A low whistle escaped her.

“Shit, Sam.” Her voice was hushed, reverent almost. “You look smoking hot, girl.”

I laughed, the sound fuller this time, more natural. “You think?”

“Honey, I know.” She stepped inside, her heels clicking against my floor, and I was suddenly acutely aware of the state of my apartment—the glasses everywhere, the dust, the evidence of my slow decay. But Nancy didn’t even look at it. Her eyes were fixed on me.

I was still fastening my heels—black stilettos I hadn’t worn in years, the leather stiff but still beautiful—when Nancy moved further into the living room. I heard her sharp intake of breath.

I looked up.

She was standing by the coffee table, the newspaper in her hands, her gaze locked onto Jack’s picture. The paper trembled slightly in her grip.

“What the fuck?”

Her voice was quiet now. Dangerous.

I watched her jaw tighten, her knuckles whiten. Nancy had been there through all of it—the late-night calls, the crying jags, the fury and the grief. She hated Jack with a purity that almost made me laugh.

“He didn’t wait, did he?” Her eyes met mine, and I saw the protective fury blazing there, the same look she’d worn the night I called her sobbing after he left.

I stood. Crossed to her. Gently, I took the paper from her hands. I didn’t look at it. I didn’t need to see his face again. I walked to the fireplace, struck a match from the box on the mantel, and held the flame to the corner of the paper.

The fire caught, hungry and fast. Orange light flickered across my face, warming my skin. I watched Jack’s smile curl and blacken, watched his new fiancée dissolve into ash, watched the announcement of their happiness crumble into nothing.

“That’s the past.” I turned back to Nancy, and for the first time in nine months, my voice held steel. “Now it’s time to start my future. You ready to be my wingman?”

Nancy linked her arm through mine, her grip firm, her warmth seeping into me. One eyebrow arched, a smirk playing at her lips, her eyes bright with mischief. Just like old times.

“Like I said on the phone,” she said, pulling me toward the door, “fuck yes.”

We stepped out into the night, the door swinging shut behind us on the life I was leaving behind. The hallway smelled of lavender and floor wax. Somewhere, a door opened and closed, the distant sound of a television murmuring through the walls. But I wasn’t listening to any of it.

Our laughter echoed off the building as we walked to the curb, arms still linked, heels clicking in sync for the first time in nine months. The air was cool against my bare shoulders. The streetlamp cast our shadows long and tangled together. Above us, the sky was a deep bruised purple, the first stars just beginning to appear when the Uber pulls up, and the two of us slide into the back seat.

I leaned my head against the back of the Uber seat and let the city lights blur past the window. The leather was cool against my bare shoulders. The faint scent of vanilla clung to the air—Nancy’s perfume, or maybe mine, I couldn’t tell anymore.

Beside me, Nancy was already scrolling through her phone, rattling off the names of clubs and the quality of their DJs, but I wasn’t really listening. I was watching the streets roll by, the familiar landmarks of the city I’d abandoned for nine months. The café where Jack and I used to get Sunday coffee. The park where we’d walked after our wedding. The bookstore that had hosted my first signing.

I thought about the brandy bottles multiplying like ghosts in my recycling bin. The days I’d spent in bed, watching the light shift across the ceiling, too empty to move. The nights I’d spent crying until there was nothing left, until I was just a hollow shell wrapped in sheets that still smelled like him.

I thought about the way I’d let my world shrink down to the size of my apartment. My sofa. My grief.

Nancy reached over and squeezed my hand.

“You, okay?”

I turned to her. In the shifting light of the passing streetlamps, her face was a familiar comfort—the only person who had never stopped showing up, even when I gave her nothing in return. The woman who had held my hair back when I threw up from crying too hard. Who had sat in silence with me when I couldn’t find words. Who had called every single day, even though I never answered.

“I will be,” I said, and for the first time, I believed it.

Nancy grinned, wide and bright. “Damn right you will be. Tonight, we get you laid. Tomorrow, we will work on the rest.”

I laughed and squeezed her hand back, feeling the warmth of her friendship seep into the cold places I’d been carrying for so long.

With her in my life, I know I can make it.

The Uber pulled up to the club. Through the window, I could see the neon sign flickering—Velvet—the crowd of beautiful people waiting in line, the bass already thrumming through the pavement like a second heartbeat. I could feel it in my chest. In my bones. In the parts of me that had been asleep for nine months, finally stirring to life.

I stepped out into the neon glow, my heels hitting the pavement, and something shifted inside me. The night was warm. The air smelled of perfume and possibility. Above me, the sky was a deep velvet blue, scattered with stars I’d forgotten existed.

I didn’t know what was coming. Didn’t know that across the street, a man was watching me climb out of the car, his world tilting on its axis the same way mine had nine months ago. Didn’t know that this club, Velvet, belonged to him—that he’d built it with his own hands, that he ruled it like a king, that he’d never once looked at a woman the way he was looking at me right now.

All I knew was this:

I was done hiding.

And tonight, I was going to remember what it felt like to be alive.

Ben Anderson

The night air hit my face, cool and sharp, carrying the scent of exhaust and perfume and the electric anticipation that always hung around the entrance of a busy club.

I leaned against my car, the metal cool against my back, and let my eyes drift across the crowd. Beautiful people in beautiful clothes, laughing, posing, pretending. I’d seen a thousand nights just like this one. A thousand faces I’d forget by morning.

The Uber pulled up across the street. The door opened.

And everything changed.

A woman climbed out.

Dark hair, wild and loose, catching the neon glow as ink spilt across her shoulders. Legs that went on forever, emerging from a slash of red that clung to every curve like it had been painted on. She moved with a kind of reckless grace, a little unsteady, a little dangerous—like someone who’d just decided to burn her whole life down and was enjoying the fire.

Her blonde friend followed, laughing at something, but I barely registered her.

My attention was locked on the woman in red.

She stood on the curb for a moment, tilting her head back to look at the sky, and something about the gesture—the vulnerability of it, the openness—snagged me low in my gut. She was beautiful, yes, but it was more than that. It was the way she held herself, like a woman emerging from a long darkness, blinking at the light. Like she was remembering who she used to be.

I watched the way she moved toward the club entrance, her hips swaying, her laughter floating across the street like a dare. There was a story in her. I could feel it. A wound. A rage. A hunger.

I pushed off from the car and crossed the road, my feet carrying me toward the entrance as she disappeared inside. The bouncers nodded at me, parting the crowd, but I barely noticed. My world had narrowed to a flash of red fabric and the memory of dark eyes I hadn’t even seen yet.

There’s something about her.

My blood hummed. My heart kicked against my ribs. I hadn’t felt this in years—that electric pull, that certainty that the next few minutes were going to change something. I’d built this club, curated every detail, controlled every variable. But I couldn’t control this. And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to.

Inside, the club was a sensory assault I usually navigated with practised ease. Bass vibrating through the floor. Bodies pressed together on the dance floor. Lights slicing through the smoke in arcs of purple and gold. But tonight, I moved through it like a man in a dream, my eyes scanning the crowd for that flash of red.

I found her at the bar first, ordering something amber that she knocked back in one go. Her friend was beside her, saying something that made her laugh, and the sound cut through the noise like a blade—bright and unguarded and so damn alive it made my chest ache.

I was surprised when she walked straight into me as I entered the bathroom after following her. It took a lot for me not to pull her into my arms and kiss her senseless as she stood there looking up at me with those big, beautiful eyes. Before I knew it she brushed past me and disappeared into the hallway as the bathroom door closed.

It was not long, and I was back at the edge of the dance floor, a scotch in my hand as I looked for her again.

When my eyes found her, she was alone. I watched her as the beat seemed to wrap around her like a lover. Her hands slid down her body, fingers tracing her own curves, her hips rolling slowly and deliberately. Her head fell back, her dark hair cascading down her spine, her eyes closed, her lips parted.

She wasn’t dancing for anyone. She was dancing for herself. Like she was reclaiming something that had been stolen.

I leaned against the edge of the VIP section, watching her with an intensity that should have embarrassed me. But I couldn’t look away. There was something raw about her, something real. In a club full of masks and performances, she was the only genuine thing in the room.

Who the fuck are you?

As if she felt the weight of my gaze, she turned.

Our eyes met across the floor.

The world narrowed to that single point of contact. The music faded. The crowd dissolved. There was only her—those dark eyes, hooded and curious, fixed on me with an intensity that mirrored my own. Her lips curved, just slightly. A challenge. An invitation.

I could feel her gaze like a touch. Like a hand sliding down my chest. Like a whisper in my ear that said, I see you. The real you. And I’m not afraid.

I pushed off from the railing and started toward her.

The crowd parted for me—it always did, here—or maybe I pushed through them, I couldn’t say. Every step felt inevitable. Like I’d been walking toward this woman my whole life without knowing it. Like this club, this empire I’d built was just the place I’d been waiting to find her.

She watched me approach, and I saw it—the flicker of nerves beneath the bravado, the quick rise and fall of her chest, the way her fingers curled at her sides like she was bracing herself for impact. But she didn’t back away. Didn’t look down. Didn’t play the games I was used to.

Good. I’m tired of games.

I reached her without saying a word. My hand closed around hers, her skin warm and soft, her pulse fluttering against my palm like a trapped bird.

She didn’t fight me. Her fingers curled around mine, gripping back as I pulled her off the dance floor, and when I glanced back, she was smiling—a slow, dangerous curve of red lips that told me she knew exactly what she was doing. That she’d come here looking for something, and she’d found it.

I pulled her through the crowd, toward the back hallway where my office waited. The urgency built with every step, a pressure behind my ribs, a hunger in my gut that had nothing to do with food. I needed to taste her. Needed to feel her mouth beneath mine. Needed to know her name, her story, the sound she made when she fell apart.

My office door was at the end of the hall. Private. Soundproof. Mine.

I glanced back at her as we walked, and she met my eyes with that same steady gaze, unafraid, unapologetic. Like she’d already decided exactly how this night was going to end.

I didn’t know her name, not yet, that is.

But something told me this woman—this woman with the red dress and the wildfire eyes and the ghost of grief clinging to her like smoke—was about to change everything I thought I knew.