Delaney James was wearing Chanel the night her husband told her he didn't love her anymore.
In an instant, her picture-perfect Manhattan life-complete with a brownstone on the Upper East Side, a blossoming career as a fashion journalist, and a devas...
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I've been with my fair share of women.
That's not something I say with pride or shame – it's just the reality of the life I've lived. When your name carries weight and your face shows up in places it shouldn't, things come easy. Doors open. People lean in. You don't have to chase much of anything.
And for years, I didn't. I let it be easy. Let it stay surface-level. Let it end before it ever had the chance to matter. Most of it blurred together – different faces, different cities, the same quiet understanding when it was over. No expectations, no complications, no one asking for more than I was willing to give.
It worked. Until it didn't.
Because no matter who I was with, it never felt like anything more than passing time. No one ever got under my skin. No one ever stayed with me after they were gone. I could walk out of a room and not think twice about who I'd left behind.
Except Delaney.
There's never been a version of my life – no matter how far I've run from this town, no matter how much I tried to build something separate – where Delaney doesn't exist somewhere in the background, fixed and unshakable.
I tried to out run it. Thought if I filled enough space, it would finally fade into something manageable. Something I could look back on without feeling like I'd left a piece of myself behind.
It didn't work.
Because none of them ever made me feel the way she does.
No one else has ever made me want to slow down long enough to actually be somewhere. To plan something as simple as a picnic dinner and care whether it's right. To stand in line before sunrise for a twelve-dollar coffee I wouldn't be caught dead ordering if it wasn't for her, just because I know the way her mouth curves and her eyes flutter shut when she takes that first sip.
No one has ever made me pay attention like that.
And it's not just the easy things. It's the way something in me jumps to action when she's not okay. The way I notice before she says a word – when her shoulders pull in, when her eyes go distant, when her voice loses that edge she pretends is always there. There's this pull I can't ignore, something wired too deep to question, that has me stepping in before I even realize I'm doing it.
Not because she needs someone to fix it, but because every instinct I have leans toward her anyway. Toward making sure she's safe. Toward putting myself between her and anything that even looks like it might hurt her. Toward giving her a place where she doesn't have to hold everything together on her own.
I've never felt that with anyone else. Never wanted to.
And maybe that's the problem. Maybe I never gave myself the chance to figure out what life looks like without her, because some part of me already decided there wasn't a version worth having.
