NATALIE
By the time I stepped out of my office, I felt like I'd been wrung out and hung to dry. Every bone in my body ached with the weight of everything I hadn’t said to Edwin.
Everything I couldn't say. His visit earlier that day had cracked something open in me, and now all I wanted was a dark room, a blanket, and silence.
But I had a blind date.
Because Joan had set it up the moment I said yes. Because I needed something—anything—that wasn't tangled up in sweat, fever, and the quiet ache of wanting someone who might never be mine.
In the shower, I kept repeating the same sentence to myself like a mantra.
"This is not about love."
It wasn’t. It was about normal. It was about control. It was about me deciding, just once, to do something safe.
I curled my hair softly, swiped on l
