The bike is a heavy, rusted thing from Amelia's garage, and pedaling it feels like punishment. I don't know where I’m going, I just know I need to get out of there. The tires crunch over gravel, then hum on asphalt, my lungs burning in the thin Wyoming air. I end up at a small cafe on the edge of town, the kind with chipped paint and a flickering ‘Open’ sign. I step in, the bell jangling like an alarm, and get a coffee so bitter it makes my eyes water.

Hours pass. The sun moves across the vinyl booth. My phone buzzes against the Formica table—a persistent, angry insect. Amelia. Calling, then texting. I don’t read them. I can picture the words: *Where are you? We need to talk. Are you safe?* It was probably her and Arthur’s plan all along. Let Sebastian have some fun with the little sister. That’s all she’s good for—a fun time, for a short time. A summer chaos dispenser. I wrap my hands around the cold mug until my fingers ache.

When it buzzes again, the screen reads MARK. Something in my chest fractures cleanly. I pick up. “Hello?”

“Hey, you.” His voice is warm, a blanket. He’s on his break, he says. Just wanted to hear my voice. I don’t know why, but I cry. It’s silent, just tears tracking down into the collar of my shirt, my breath hitching once, softly, against the receiver.

“Imogen? What’s wrong?”

“I had a fight,” I whisper, swiping at my cheek. “With my… with Arthur. I don’t know where to go.” It’s not the full truth. It’s a fragment, polished and offered. The real truth is a shattered mirror on a garden path.

“Come here,” he says, no hesitation. “Stay at my place. For as long as you need.”

The offer hangs there, simple and solid. I stare out the cafe window at the empty street. I can’t do that. Can I? His apartment is a haven of lemon ginger tea and proficient, devastating kindness. A place where I could maybe learn to be the sleek stranger in Amelia’s mirror. But going back there feels like surrendering a piece of the story—the messy, unresolved, screaming chapter I’m currently living in.

"Okay." I whisper into the phone, the words tasting like chalk. He tells me where to find the spare key—under the ceramic frog by the door, of course he has a ceramic frog—and that he won’t be off until seven a.m. He tells me to make myself at home. Gosh, I’m so pathetic. The thought rings clear and sharp in my head. Maybe they’re all right about me. A fun girl. Summer chaos. A creature so fundamentally adrift she has to call the nearest competent man when her own life gets too loud.

I find the key exactly where he said, under the whimsical, glazed frog. His apartment is a silent, curated museum of normalcy. I don’t turn on the lights. I just collapse onto his perfectly plaid sofa, the storm inside me finally spent, and let the deep, lemon-scented dark swallow me whole.

Something warm and solid shifts near me. A hand, gentle on my shoulder. "Imogen."

I blink awake. Early morning light, the kind that’s all soft promise, is slicing through the blinds, painting stripes across Mark’s concerned face. He’s still in his scrubs, his brown hair slightly mussed, smelling of hospital antiseptic and coffee. I’m curled on his sofa, a knit blanket I don’t remember pulling over me. For a dizzy second, I don’t know where I am, or who I’m supposed to be here.

"You were talking in your sleep," he says, his voice a low rumble of fatigue. He kneels on the floor beside the sofa, his square-jawed face level with mine. "Something about a garden path."

"Did I have any better lines in the second act?" My own voice is sleep-ravaged, a stranger’s.

A small smile touches his lips. "The delivery was a bit muddled. The emotion, though? Crystal clear." His thumb brushes a strand of hair from my cheek, his touch so undemanding it makes my throat tighten. "Do you want to talk about the fight?"

I look at him—at his kind, deep-set eyes, at the dependable set of his shoulders. He is a sanctuary. And I am a vandal. "Not really," I say, the truth a quiet, shameful thing between us. "I just… didn’t know where else to go."

He just nods. "Well, I'm glad you're here." He stands, his knees cracking softly. "I just need to shower and then I'll probably be sleeping for most of the day. Will you be okay?"

"Yes, of course," I say, pushing myself up to sit. The blanket pools in my lap. "I'm sorry. Don't worry about me. You need your sleep, you need to save lives and all." I force a chuckle that sounds like a small, fragile bird hitting a window.

"Do you mind if I use your laptop?" I ask, gesturing vaguely toward his tidy, wooden desk. “Just looking for flights. Nothing that will cause a virus.” I put my hand up like a girl scout taking an oathe.

"Not at all," he says, already halfway down the hall toward the bathroom. He pauses, turning back. His brown eyes are heavy with lack of sleep but still disarmingly focused. "You leaving?"

"Must've been serious," he adds, his voice softer now. It's not an accusation. It's an observation, clinical and kind. He sees the wound, he's just not pressing on it yet.

"I just don't have anything keeping me here." The words fall out, flat and final. I watch his face, the way he processes this. He thinks for a moment, his jaw working slightly, then just nods once, accepting it like a diagnosis he can't argue with, and disappears into the bathroom.

The shower starts. A distant, steady roar. I pad over to his desk. The laptop is sleek and silver, passwordless. Of course it is. I open it, the glow illuminating my hands in the dim room. The search bar waits, blank and demanding. I type in one-way flights to Scottsdale. The results populate, a grid of escape routes and prices. My chest feels hollow. This is what adults do. They make plans. They book tickets. They leave messes behind.

The thought of my parents’ tidy, disappointed faces in Scottsdale makes my stomach clench. I’d be a homing pigeon returning to the cage it fled. I delete ‘Scottsdale’ and type ‘Los Angeles’ instead. The fires are out. The air is clear. My shitty studio with the leaking faucet and the view of a brick wall is probably still available. It’s a return to a different kind of emptiness, but at least it’s a mess I made myself. The prices are astronomical. I lean back in his ergonomic chair, the leather cool through my t-shirt, and stare at the glowing grid of my escape routes.

The shower stops. A moment later, Mark emerges from the hall, a towel slung low around his hips, his hair dark and dripping onto his shoulders. The morning light catches the water trails on his chest, the definition of his stomach. He’s unfairly handsome, even half-dead on his feet. He pads over to the sofa and pulls on a pair of grey sweatpants from a pile of clean laundry, moving with the economical grace of someone who operates on minimal sleep. “Find anything?” he asks, his voice gravelly.

“Just confirming that spontaneity is a luxury for the wealthy or the deeply irresponsible,” I say, clicking the laptop shut. The screen winks out, leaving the room feeling suddenly quieter, more intimate. “I think it’s safe to go back to LA. The chaos there is at least my own brand.”

He sits on the far end of the sofa, running a hand through his damp hair. He looks at me, his brown eyes soft with exhaustion and something else—concern, but the practical kind. The kind that triages. “Would it be crazy,” he begins slowly, weighing each word, “to tell you to stay here? At least until things have cooled down and you can talk it out with your family.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Family is family. They blow up. They say stupid shit. But it’s usually not a forever bomb.”

The words land in the quiet room with a solid, unbearable kindness. He’s offering me a harbor, not just a couch. A timeline. A path back to normalcy that doesn’t involve a one-way ticket. The part of me that’s spent the last week performing for an audience of one—a cold, blue-eyed audience who thinks I’m a summer distraction—screams that this is the exit. Take it. Be the girl who chooses the good, simple man. Be the girl in the sweater-set who gets the happy ending. But the louder, messier part just feels like a fraud. “You barely know me,” I whisper, the truth of it scraping my throat raw. “I could be actual, certifiably crazy.”

A faint, tired smile touches his lips. “I’m a resident. I’ve seen certified crazy. This isn’t it.” He reaches over, his hand covering mine where it rests on the closed laptop. His skin is warm, slightly damp from his shower. “Stay. Let the air clear. Then decide.” His thumb strokes my knuckle once, a simple, grounding touch. The offer hangs between us, solid and real and terrifying. It feels less like a rescue and more like a choice I’m not sure I know how to make.

The feeling hits me like a train—a sudden, visceral need to be consumed, to be so thoroughly wanted that my own thoughts dissolve. Before I can question it, I’m moving. My hands find his square jaw, the stubble rough against my palms, and I kiss him. It’s not soft or questioning. It’s a crushing, a desperate silencing of the cruel, looping tape in my head. I climb over his lap on the sofa, my knees sinking into the cushions on either side of his hips, the blanket falling away.

He makes a sound against my mouth—a low, surprised grunt of approval—and his hands come up to my waist, steadying me. “Imogen,” he murmurs into the kiss, his breath warm and tasting of toothpaste.

“Don’t talk,” I whisper, biting his lower lip, not gently. I need the physics of this. The algebra of skin and pressure. I need to be the chaos, but on my terms. His hands tighten, and in one fluid, effortless motion, he stands, taking my full weight with him as he lifts me. My legs wrap around his waist, my arms around his neck. He carries me the short distance to his bedroom like I weigh nothing, like I’m something precious and breakable, and the contradiction makes my heart hammer against my ribs.

He lays me down in the center of his neatly made bed. The morning light is stronger here, bleaching the pale grey sheets. He looks down at me, his brown eyes dark, his chest rising and falling. “You’re sure?” he asks, his voice gravelly. It’s the doctor in him, checking for consent one last time, and it’s so decent it almost makes me cry.

I answer by pulling my t-shirt over my head in one swift move. The air is cool on my skin. “I’m sure I want to this right now,” I say, the truth of it raw and stark between us. He just nods, a sharp, understanding dip of his chin, and follows me down.