Anna's second regression, Alpha regrets it

The mirror showed twenty-five. My calendar showed thirty-two. My heart kept the receipts. I stared at the face in the glass like it had stolen something from me and then offered it back with a smirk. The cheekbones were the same, the freckle by my left eye still stubborn, but the skin had that taut, unspent quality that made me feel like a secret. My hair fell in a younger way, the kind that made my jawline look dangerous. I pinched the inside of my arm until the sting said yes, this is real. The sting didn’t explain physics, but it was honest. My phone buzzed with a message from Rian: Gallery tonight. You coming? The name landed like a coin in my chest. Rian had been a soundtrack to reckless choices—ambition in a tailored suit, a smile that promised returns he never delivered. He’d left with a polite, practiced regret and a suitcase full of reasons. He’d never come back the way I’d needed him to. I could tell him the truth—I’m thirty-two and woke up twenty-five—but where’s the fun in that? Instead I dressed like a woman who had nothing to prove and everything to test: a silk blouse that skimmed my collarbone, jeans that fit like a dare, boots that clicked with intention. I braided my hair because it felt like armor and left a few strands loose because I liked the way they softened my face. In the mirror I practiced a smile that said, I know what I want, and then another that said, I might let you try. The gallery smelled like white paint and curated indifference. Rian was there before I reached the door, leaning against a pillar with the kind of posture that said he’d learned how to command a room. He looked smaller in a way that made my chest do a curious flip—not smaller in stature, but smaller in the way men look when the thing they thought defined them is suddenly optional. He didn’t recognize me at first. That was the first thrill: anonymity as a weapon. He smiled at me like he was offering a courtesy I hadn’t earned. I returned it with a tilt of my head and a slow, deliberate approach. “New here?” he asked, voice the same velvet I remembered. “First time,” I said. “I’m the intern who’s supposed to fetch your ego more wine.” He laughed, and the sound hit a place in me that used to ache. “You have a dangerous mouth for an intern.” “Dangerous mouths get promoted,” I said. “Or fired. Depends on the day.” He studied me like he was trying to place a memory. “You look familiar.” “Maybe you just miss familiar things,” I offered, and watched his eyes flick to my hands, to the ring finger that bore nothing. He swallowed. For a second the room narrowed to the space between us, the hum of other conversations receding like tide. “You have a name?” he asked. “Anna,” I said. “Anna who knows how to say no.” “Rian,” he answered, and the syllable landed like a small confession. He offered me a drink like an olive branch. I took it because I wanted to see how he moved when he thought he was in control. He talked about the exhibit—lines, textures, the artist’s obsession with absence—and I listened, cataloguing the way he used words to build a fortress. When he asked about my life, I gave him a version of the truth that fit the night: freelance copywriter, newly back in the city, rediscovering old haunts. He told me about his latest acquisition, a building downtown that would be his next empire. He said the word we in a way that used to include me and now didn’t. I felt the old ache, the one that had taught me how to fold myself into the spaces other people left. But this time the ache was a tool. I let it sharpen me. At some point the conversation tilted. He reached for my hand—an innocent, almost reflexive touch—and I let my fingers rest in his. The contact was electric and clinical at once: a test of temperature, of intent. He lingered, then pulled back as if surprised by his own hesitation. “You okay?” he asked, suddenly small again. “I’m better than okay,” I said. “I’m curious.” Curiosity, I decided, would be my compass. Not revenge. Not cruelty. Curiosity about what happens when a woman who remembers every slight gets to choose how she’s seen. Curiosity about whether men who’d once walked away would learn to stay when faced with a woman who would not beg. When we reached the painting he’d bought, Rian stepped closer, and I let the space between us become a conversation. He spoke about color and absence; I listened and let my body answer in small, deliberate ways. The world narrowed to the brushstrokes and the heat of his breath near my ear. He said something about how the piece reminded him of a time he’d been reckless and alive. I smiled, and it was the kind of smile that had nothing to do with forgiveness and everything to do with choice. “Maybe,” I said, “you’re finally learning how to regret properly.” He looked at me then, really looked, and for the first time I saw the man who had to reckon with his own reflection. The thought made my pulse quicken—not with the old hunger for being fixed, but with a new, giddy thrill: the knowledge that I could be desired and still be the one who decided what came next.