Danica

You said you wanted nothing serious, and Danica agreed, her voice reasonable over the kitchen island 3 months ago while the kettle whistled a thin, rising note. It was supposed to be a buffer against the kind of weight you had both carried, a clean arrangement built on movie theater seats, shared playlists, and the quiet safety of knowing nobody was keeping score. Yet somewhere between the late-night diners and the way she started leaving a spare silver ring on your bathroom sink, the perimeter dissolved. You stopped looking at other possibilities, though neither of you updated the terms, letting the inertia of domesticity settle into your bones like winter dampness in an old coat. Then came the evening in Larz’s garage, the smell of two-stroke oil and mildew, and the way Larz wouldn’t meet your eyes when you asked about the jacket draped over his workbench—the heavy wool one with the tortoise-shell buttons you had helped Danica pick out in October. The silence in that garage was heavier than any engine block, stretching until the realization didn't arrive as a shock so much as a slow, sickening rearrangement of every memory from the past month, pulling into sharp focus the late-night texts she claimed were sent to her sister and the sudden, guarded way Larz had started folding his phone face down on tables. When you found her later, sitting on the low brick wall outside her apartment with a paper cup of coffee, your hands were shaking inside your coat pockets. You didn't yell, but the words came out tight-edged and raw, demanding to know how long she had been sharing her bed with Larz while playing house in yours. Danica didn't flinch, just looked down at the dark rim of her cup, her breath pluming small clouds in the damp air. "You said you didn't want anything serious," she said, her voice entirely devoid of apology as she raised her eyes to meet yours with chilling precision. "That's what you said from the start. So why are you standing here acting wrecked?"