Page 41 of Every Shattered Note
We didn’t kiss.
Nothing happened.
So why does it feel like I’m already missing him?
ChapterSeventeen
Dexter
What do you do after what seemed like a once in-a-lifetime night where you so wanted to kiss the girl but abstained because that probably would fuck up the entire moment?
A night that feels like it might’ve changed something in you—something you didn’t even realize was waiting to shift?
After standing in the cool air with her so close you could count the rise and fall of her breath, after wanting to kiss her so fucking badly your hands almost forgot how to stay still—but you didn’t, because somehow you knew that crossing that line would break whatever fragile thing was building between you.
Something I don’t even know how to classify or to keep—if I even could.
The moment I almost leaned in still loops through my mind like a half-finished song as I walk back to Barret’s apartment.Her breath had hitched, soft and uncertain, and everything inside me surged toward her—every instinct, every ache I’ve learned to keep buried.But I stopped.Barely.
It wasn’t restraint, nor discipline.
It was fear.
Survival.
Because if I’d kissed her, it wouldn’t have been simple.It would’ve been an unraveling.
And I don’t know if I’d survive that again.
Now it’s just me, the silence, and the way her rhythm still lingers—her voice threading through my thoughts like a forgotten melody.It’s maddening.Every word she said has turned into a lyric, every glance a chord progression I can’t stop replaying.She doesn’t even realize how she carries tempo, how she speaks like she’s syncing to a song no one else can hear.
I walk faster.I need to get it out before it fades.Before her sound turns into something I can’t catch again.
By the time I reach Barret’s apartment, my pulse is thrumming with something close to panic.I fumble with the keys, curse under my breath, and step inside.
Thank fuck there’s a piano here.Rosie wouldn’t do her justice tonight—this isn’t a guitar song.Not yet.This needs something larger, something that can hold all the ache sitting in my chest.
The apartment is dark except for the streetlight bleeding through the blinds.I sink onto the bench, the air cold against my neck, and let my fingers fall to the keys.
The first note wavers.The next one steadies it.Then I stop thinking.
The melody builds itself—trembling, uneven, raw—but it’s hers.Her laugh sits in the high notes, her sighs in the rests.The quiet between them carries the ache that followed her goodnight.
It’s been years since a song came this easily.
Years since it felt like creating instead of numbing.
Somewhere between the verses, I realize I stopped writing music long before I quit drinking and using.I let other people fill the silence for me—Roderick or Barret got it.They cared more or ...I don’t know what happened to me that I stopped giving two shits.I was too busy chasing noise, trying to drown the ache that music once eased.
But this ...this isn’t noise.It’s her.
It’s the way she overthinks every word, like she’s trying to find the right note in a song only she can hear—careful, quiet, as though speaking too soon might pull everything off balance.The way she bites the inside of her lip—not out of nerves, but precision—like she’s editing everything in her head before it ever hits the air.It’s the way she walks into a space and something shifts, like the lighting was off until she arrived.
She’s not loud, but somehow she tunes the whole fucking room—brighter, warmer, more in key.Like she sees where the tension lives and softens it.Fixes things without needing credit.Offers comfort like it’s instinct, not performance.She doesn't just walk in—she recalibrates.Like a new chord that changes everything that came before it.
And it isn’t just that she feels everything.It’s that she does something about it.She gives a damn.Even when she pretends not to.Even when she’s pretending not to look back.
There’s something symphonic about her—layered, unrushed, with those hidden swells of emotion beneath all the control.She makes you want to listen closer.And fuck, I do.
