3.
1564 Words
The hotel room door clicked shut behind her with a quiet finality, but the stillness inside did nothing to calm her. If anything, it amplified everything she was trying not to feel. River crossed the small room with stiff steps, her breath uneven as she pressed her palms against the cool edge of the kitchenette counter and bowed her head. Her spine shook once she refused to call it a tremble, and she forced a deep breath in, but oxygen felt thin, almost unwilling to cooperate with her panicked lungs.
Ivan.
Even thinking about his name felt like stepping barefoot into glass. Still, there was a part of her that was very familiar with him, and she hated to admit that for a moment, standing there in the street with him, she had longed for that familiarity, his scent, his strength and everything that captivated her that night. The night that had stirred up everything and led to the consequences that she had faced all on her own. With everyone else shunning her, she had to be brave and overcome them. That night had been the only night she had let go of control and let her heart and desires have their way and, based on what it produced, she wasn't sure she could ever make the same mistake again.
She shut her eyes, trying to steady herself. She hadn’t expected it to hurt this much. A town can wound you. A past can scar you. Memories can sting you. But Ivan… Ivan was the kind of pain that lived in the bloodstream, the kind that resurfaced the moment he was near. Seeing him again standing on that sidewalk, tall and cold and painfully familiar, she had ripped something open inside her she hadn’t let herself touch in ten years.
River pushed away from the counter and walked toward the window. The night outside was soft, a haze of streetlights glowing dimly across Collen’s streets. Everything looked cleaner, newer, brighter than she remembered, but beneath the modern shine, the old ghosts whispered through the cracks.
She wrapped her arms around herself as she leaned her forehead to the glass.
Jessy.
The name alone tightened everything in her chest. A child who had lost both parents in one night. A child unaware that her world now rested in the hands of two people who once could barely exist in the same room without combusting. River hadn’t slept since she left Collen ten years ago, not properly, but tonight, she knew she wasn’t sleeping at all.
She sank onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. Questions swarmed her like insects.
Why her? Why did Naomi, back then a friend then turned a stranger like everyone else in this town, choose her? Why entrust her daughter to a woman who had been at the center of a scandal no one in this town ever forgot? Why bind her to Ivan of all people?
Her throat ached. She pressed her palms against her eyes, willing herself not to cry. Not now. Not over him. Not in the past. The only person allowed to meet in the morning was Jessy.
River stood abruptly and paced toward the bathroom. The mirror didn’t offer comfort—just a reflection she barely recognized. Tired eyes rimmed with exhaustion. Jaw clenched. A woman bracing against a storm she didn’t ask for.
“You can do this,” she whispered.
Her reflection didn’t look convinced. A vibration cut through the silence. Her phone lit up on the nightstand.
A message from an unknown number. River didn’t need to open it to know who it was. Her pulse raced as she reached for the phone.
Can we talk?
Her stomach twisted. She didn’t even think. Her fingers moved on their own.
No.
The reply came almost immediately.
River, don’t—
She shut off the phone and tossed it aside.
No.
Not tonight. Not ever. She wasn’t opening that door, not even a c***k.
The hours dragged. She tried everything, pacing, showering, making tea she didn’t drink, but the night clung to her like a second skin. Sleep stayed far away. By the time dawn began creeping over the horizon, her eyes burned from exhaustion. Yet she forced herself up, forced herself into a clean sweater and dark jeans, nothing too soft, nothing too sharp. She didn’t want to look fragile, but she also didn’t want to look like she was preparing for war either. In the mirror she practiced a small smile.It wobbled. Jessy deserved someone steady. Even if River didn’t feel steady at all.
River stood by the window as morning fully broke, the soft yellow glow settling over Collen’s streets like a quiet promise. She closed her eyes and let the sunlight touch her face.
“Please,” she whispered to the empty room, “let me be enough for her.”
With her heart pounding steadily against her ribs, River grabbed her coat and purse then walked out the door.
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Ivan didn’t realize he was gripping the whiskey tumbler too tightly until the edges dug into his fingers. He set it down on the counter with more force than he intended, but the sharp clink did nothing to calm the restless storm twisting inside him. He had paced the length of the townhouse three times already. He couldn’t sit. He couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t breathe properly.
River was here.
He said the words silently, and they sounded like a confession.
She was back. After ten long years. After silence. After running. After leaving him alone with questions and memories he had no business keeping. Why had she come? He knew why, of course, the will. Jessy. The accident. Fate’s cruel sense of humor. But why did she have to look like that? Why did she still have a hold on him he couldn’t break?
Ivan dragged a hand down his face. He had spent years convincing himself that he hated her. That the sharpness in his chest whenever he remembered her was anger, not longing. But the moment he saw her standing on the sidewalk, wrapped in cold, chin lifted stubbornly something inside him split open like a wound he thought had scarred over. She was still River. Still a wildfire. Still impossible. Still breathtaking in a way that felt like punishment.
He picked up the folder from the table, the CPS documents, Jessy’s information, the details of the will. He stared at Jessy’s name. A small picture was clipped to the file: dark curls, wide eyes, a shy smile. His heart tightened unexpectedly. She was Geff’s child. Naomi’s child. A piece of the family he had lost in one violent, senseless moment. A child who now needed him. Needed stability. Needed someone who wouldn’t break or abandon her. Ivan could be that person. He needed to be. He closed the folder carefully, as if trying not to disturb something fragile.
He didn’t know if he could co-parent with River. He didn’t know if they would manage a single conversation without ripping each other open again. But for Jessy, he would do anything. Ivan tried to distract himself opened his suitcase, closed it. Changed his shirt, then changed it again. Showered twice. Nothing worked. His thoughts always circled back to her.
Her eyes when she saw him.
That flash of something between them—anger, longing, resentment, heat. The past rising between them like smoke. He reached for his phone, hesitating only a second before sending a message he shouldn’t have sent.
Can we talk?
He waited.
Her answer was short.
No.
He exhaled harshly.
He deserved that.
Maybe he deserved worse.
But he couldn’t stop himself when he typed again.
River, don’t—
The message never showed as delivered. She had turned her phone off.
Ivan ran a hand through his hair, frustration curling like fire low in his gut. Why did she still affect him like this? Why did the idea of seeing her again tomorrow feel like stepping into a battlefield he didn’t know how to win? He sat heavily on the edge of the bed and stared at the ceiling. The shadows cast by the dim lamp crawled across the walls, reminding him of nights long ago, when he would lie awake thinking of her. Wanting her. Knowing she would never be his.
Except that one night.
The night that changed everything.
The night he still tasted when he closed his eyes.
He pushed the thought away and stood abruptly. He couldn’t sit still. Not tonight.
He moved to the table again, picked up Jessy’s picture. A slow, protective warmth spread through him. “I’ll take care of you,” he murmured into the quiet. It wasn’t just a promise. It was a vow carved into his bones. He spent the rest of the night not sleeping—just pacing, thinking, remembering, bracing. By dawn, he felt wrung out and restless, but something in him had settled. He dressed in a dark coat, nothing intimidating, nothing too sharp, but he still looked like himself, controlled, disciplined, unreadable.
He wasn’t ready.
But readiness had never mattered.
Jessy mattered.
He stepped outside into the cold morning air and headed toward CPS, each step echoing the silent truth he could no longer deny,
Seeing River again might destroy him all over again.
And he would still go.
- Writer
