Page 37 of Beautiful Ruins
And yet.
Little things I’d dismissed because loving someone meant giving them the benefit of the doubt, even when they didn’t deserve it.
The late nights and unexplained absences.The burner phone that he swore was “for work.”
The way he never let me come to certain parts of the city with him.
I carried him through stretches of uncertainty, followed by weeks where he borrowed money and insisted he was “between jobs.”
Between jobs.
I pressed my palms into my eyes, focusing on each inhale and exhale, like I could keep the panic from escalating if I mastered my body hard enough.
How had I been so blind?
No—worse.The signs had been there.I just hadn’t wanted to see them.Because seeing them would have meant admitting I’d wasted years on a man who took more than he gave and never once tried to be better.
Nathan hadn’t been my great love.He’d been a problem I thought I could solve.A mess I convinced myself was temporary.I’d stayed because leaving felt like failure, and because walking away would’ve meant acknowledging that effort didn’t always equal reward.
And now this.
Drugs.
The word alone made my skin crawl.I’d grown up watching what addiction did to people—how it stripped them down, turned them into shadows of themselves.I’d sworn I’d never be anywhere near that world.
What if I already had been?
The thought came sharp and sudden.What if he’d left something in my apartment?
My chest tightened.I pictured my tiny kitchen, the cupboards I never checked properly, the closet where he’d kept a spare duffel bag.What if there had been something hidden there—something illegal, something relentless—and I’d been living with it without ever knowing?
What if the police had come instead of Raze?
The image made me shudder.
What if I’d been dragged into it by association?By proximity.By being with the wrong person.What if I’d ended up another cautionary story—another gullible girl who fell for a man with secrets and paid for it with her freedom?
I hugged my arms around myself, suddenly cold.
Raze had been angry.Not at me—at Nathan.At the fact that someone was dealing on his turf.I didn’t need him to explain what that meant.I could hear it in the way his voice had gone flat.Dangerous.
Whatever happened when he found Nathan would not be gentle.
The thought should have scared me for Nathan.It didn’t.
Instead, it scared me because of how close I’d come to being collateral.To being dragged into a war I hadn’t known was happening.To being a bystander standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, trusting a man who didn’t deserve it.
I sank down onto the edge of the bed, fingers twisting into the blanket.The house around me felt like it was holding its breath.
If none of this had happened—if Raze hadn’t intervened, if Nathan hadn’t disappeared—would I still be there?Still making excuses?Still handing over rent money and emotional labor to a man who was running drugs behind my back?
The realization hurt more than betrayal ever could.
I hadn’t just been fooled.
I’d beenused.
And the worst part was how easily it could have gone differently.One bad night.One wrong knock on the door.One moment where Nathan decided I was expendable instead of useful.
