Nobody's Girl

THE HOME

ADRIAN

Adrian believed in routines.

I didn't.

He liked knowing what time we'd have dinner, where we'd go on weekends and whether I would be at his apartment on Friday night.

I liked waking up on a Tuesday and deciding I wanted to drive three hours in the opposite direction just because the sky looked particularly beautiful.

He called it impulsive.

I called it being alive.

Somehow, we worked.

Maybe that was what made Adrian dangerous.

He wasn't exciting in the way Roman was.

He didn't make my pulse jump every time his name appeared on my screen. He didn't argue with me simply because he enjoyed watching me get annoyed. He didn't make me wonder whether I was going to kiss him or yell at him before the night ended.

Adrian was easier.

He was the person I went to when the world became too loud.

And perhaps the most frightening thing about having someone like that was knowing exactly how much you needed them.

“You're doing it again.”

I looked over at him.

“Doing what?”

“Thinking.”

I laughed. “I'm sorry. I'll stop.”

“Please do.”

I kicked his leg beneath the table.

He caught my ankle before I could pull it away.

“Violent.”

“You deserve it.”

“For what?”

“Being annoying.”

His fingers tightened around my ankle.

“That's not a crime.”

“It should be.”

He finally released me and I returned to my food.

We were at a small restaurant tucked into a street I had never noticed before Adrian took me there. He had discovered it two months earlier and had been talking about their pasta ever since.

I had told him pasta was pasta.

He had taken that personally.

Now, three bites into my meal, I had to admit he had been right.

“Don't say it,” he said.

I looked up.

“Say what?”

“That I'm right.”

I smiled.

“You're not.”

“Sloane.”

“It's mediocre.”

“You've been eating for fifteen minutes.”

“I'm hungry.”

“You've barely spoken.”

“Because I'm concentrating.”

“On what?”

“Chewing.”

He stared at me.

I stared back.

Then he laughed.

It was one of my favorite sounds.

I didn't tell him that.

I rarely told Adrian the things that mattered most.

It was strange, considering he knew so much about me.

He knew that I hated hospitals.

He knew that I slept better with a fan running.

He knew I had a tendency to reread old messages whenever I was sad, even though I would deny it if confronted.

He knew that when I was angry, I became extremely polite.

He knew that I didn't like people touching my hair without asking.

He knew that i dreaded people touching my face.

He knew I preferred receiving flowers for no particular reason rather than on birthdays or anniversaries.

He knew almost everything.

Except the things that could change the way he looked at me.

My phone buzzed.

I didn't reach for it.

Adrian noticed.

Of course he did.

“Are you not going to check that?”

“No.”

“That's new.”

I shrugged.

He leaned back in his chair.

“Should I be worried?”

I looked at him.

“About my phone?”

“About you.”

That caught me off guard.

I tilted my head.

“Why?”

“You've been distracted all evening.”

“Maybe I'm tired.”

“You're not.”

“You seem very confident about my internal state.”

“I've been dating you for two years.”

Two years.

I felt the words settle somewhere behind my ribs.

Two years sounded longer when someone said it aloud.

I'd never been particularly good with time.

I measured relationships differently.

Not in months or years.

In moments.

The first time Adrian had held my hand.

The night we stayed awake until sunrise talking about absolutely nothing.

The first time he saw me cry.

The first time I met his mother and realized she'd already heard far too much about me.

The night I got sick and he sat on the bathroom floor outside the door until I felt better.

The little things.

Those were the things that made Adrian mine.

Or perhaps made me his.

I wasn't sure which.

“Two years,” I repeated.

He smiled.

“You sound surprised.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

“Because you seem like the type of person who would get bored.”

I almost laughed.

Almost.

Because that was exactly the problem.

I didn't get bored with Adrian.

I got comfortable.

And comfort had always frightened me more than boredom.

My phone buzzed again.

This time, Adrian looked directly at it.

I ignored it.

“Who is it?”

I picked up my glass.

“Probably spam.”

“Spam sends three messages?”

“Very persistent spam.”

He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

I hated that.

I hated when Adrian was suspicious because suspicion made me feel like I had already done something wrong.

And perhaps, in some ways, I had.

He reached across the table and took my hand.

“Come home with me tonight.”

My heart gave a small, stupid kick.

I hated that too.

“That's not a question.”

“It's an invitation.”

“Sounds demanding.”

“Would you prefer I beg?”

I smiled.

“No.”

“Good.”

He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand.

There were moments when Adrian made it dangerously easy to forget everything else.

This was one of them.

I looked at our hands.

His fingers were wrapped around mine as though they belonged there.

And suddenly, Roman's messages felt very far away.

Elias felt even farther.

Maybe this was why I did what I did.

Because different people could make different parts of me feel alive.

And Adrian—

Adrian made me feel safe.

I had spent most of my life believing those were two completely different things.

I was beginning to wonder whether they had to be.

---

Adrian's apartment smelled like coffee and the expensive candle he insisted wasn't expensive.

“It's a candle,” I told him the first time he'd bought it.

“It's a good candle.”

“It's burning.”

“Yes.”

“So eventually you'll have to buy another one.”

“That's generally how candles work.”

“You're wasting money.”

He'd looked at me for a long moment.

Then he'd said, “You own twelve pairs of sunglasses.”

“That is completely unrelated.”

“It really isn't.”

I smiled at the memory as I kicked off my shoes.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he called from the kitchen.

“I live here now.”

“You've been saying that for two years.”

“And yet you haven't changed the locks.”

“That's because I'm a fool.”

I walked into the kitchen.

He was standing by the counter with his sleeves pushed up, preparing coffee.

I watched him for a moment.

There was something almost painfully domestic about the scene.

Adrian at home.

Adrian making coffee.

Adrian humming quietly while he searched for something in the cabinet.

I could picture a future here.

That thought came without permission.

A home.

A shared closet.

His shoes beside mine.

His toothbrush beside mine.

Maybe a dog.

Maybe children.

Maybe Sunday mornings that looked exactly like this for years.

I immediately pushed the thought away.

“Why did you stop?”

He looked at me.

“Stop what?”

“Staring.”

“I wasn't.”

“You were.”

“I was thinking.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“That's becoming a dangerous habit.”

I walked closer.

“Maybe I was thinking about how handsome you are.”

“Liar.”

I smiled.

“See? You never believe me.”

“Because you only compliment me when you're trying to distract me.”

I paused.

He was joking.

Mostly.

I leaned against the counter.

“Maybe I like distracting you.”

“From what?”

“Everything.”

His smile faded slightly.

There it was again.

That tiny shift.

The moment when Adrian stopped joking and started looking at me properly.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I don't know what you're thinking.”

I swallowed.

“That's because I don't tell you everything.”

He nodded.

“I know.”

There was no accusation in his voice.

That somehow made it worse.

My phone buzzed again.

I closed my eyes.

Adrian looked toward the sound.

Then back at me.

“You should check it.”

“I don't want to.”

“Why?”

Because I knew who it was.

Because I knew what he wanted.

Because I knew that if I looked at the message, something inside me would shift.

And I wanted to stay here.

In this kitchen.

With Adrian.

In this little pocket of safety I'd built around myself.

“I just don't want to,” I said.

He didn't push.

That was Adrian.

He rarely pushed.

Instead, he poured the coffee and handed me a cup.

“Okay.”

I took it.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

I studied him.

“That's it?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don't know.”

“That's the problem, Sloane.”

My stomach tightened.

He turned away from me.

I stared at his back.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he turned around.

“It means I don't always know what you want.”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

Adrian sighed.

“I love you.”

The words landed softly.

Too softly.

That was the problem with Adrian.

He never used love like a weapon.

He never threw it at me during arguments or demanded that I prove I deserved it.

He simply gave it.

Freely.

And sometimes I wondered if that was why I had never figured out what to do with it.

“I love you too,” I said.

And I meant it.

God, I meant it.

Adrian stepped closer.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then his forehead rested against mine.

My eyes closed.

This was what people meant when they talked about home.

Not a place.

A person.

A feeling.

A quiet certainty that when everything else went wrong, there was somewhere you could go.

I understood that now.

And perhaps that was exactly why I had spent so much of my life making sure Adrian was never my only somewhere.

My phone buzzed again.

Neither of us moved.

Then Adrian whispered,

“Your spam is very persistent.”

I laughed against his shoulder.

He laughed too.

And just like that, the moment passed.

Later, while Adrian slept beside me, I reached for my phone.

Three unread messages.

The first was from Roman.

You disappeared.

The second came two minutes later.

I'm beginning to think you enjoy ignoring me.

The third was newer.

Goodnight, Sloane.

I stared at the screen.

Then I opened another conversation.

Elias.

No new messages.

For some reason, that bothered me more.

I locked my phone and placed it beneath my pillow.

Beside me, Adrian shifted in his sleep.

His hand found mine without waking.

I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling.

I loved Adrian.

That was the truth.

It had always been the truth.

The problem was that it wasn't the only truth.

And I was beginning to suspect that one day, all my truths were going to demand to be told at the same time.