𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐲 𝐇𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐬

forty.

My fingertips reach out to find the space beside me vacant.

My eyes lazily open, finding the stream of mid-day sunlight coming through the windows.

The bubble popped.

My limbs ache as I sit up.

The evidence scattered throughout the room, the sheet halfway pulled from the mattress and the mess of a mop on my head.

My belly feels warm as I rolled over and climb out of the bed.

It should feel like an unbearable weight.

Guilt should be sitting there, anchoring me to the mess I've created.

I suspected it would be this way.

And him leaving while I was still asleep tells me he does feel what I don't.

My own guilt would reveal itself when I saw it in him.

Till then, I got in the shower and let myself relive the past couple of hours.

I have a shift at the pottery shop in about an hour, but I planned to leave a bit early to stop for some food, so I got dressed and made my way to my cruiser in record time.

Not a single car is parked next door, which meant I was safe from facing the repercussions.

For now.

We both know the weight of what was exposed, and it would be up to Anaca as to what we do with it.

I could have gone home an hour ago.

And maybe I should have rather than delaying what must come.

I just...

I couldn't yet.

It's a very real possibility Anaca will shut down as quickly as he gave in.

That's the hard part about addictions.

Your choices are so easily made and changed and messed up.

Any logic flies out your ears and returns at the most devastating times.

And it's that devastation that leads you back to the drug to begin with, only to turn the wheel once more in a never-ending cycle.

I've been spinning the metaphorical wheel for the past hour, and I've done nothing but ruin two good pieces of clay.

I'm about to trash a third when I hear knocking on the back door. Mel mentioned a client might drop off a piece to fire, but they never showed. I assumed they must have decided to wait till tomorrow, but still I wiped one of my hands on my apron as I unlocked the door.

He leans on his forearm, which rests on the trim of the door frame. He's in jeans rather than cargo shorts.

Last I saw him, my body was molded around his as I fell asleep.

It feels too simple to say, but I do, "Hey."

He sharply inhales. "Hey."

It's there.

Below his brows.

In his stiff jaw and the diagonal line his lips fell on.

But there's something else too.

"What are you doing here?" I push the door open wider, turning my back as I walk back to the wheel I'd been sitting at.

"I was looking for you," he says after the door latches.

I scoop up the piece I ruined and toss it into the scrap bin.

I see him out of the corner of my eye, arms crossed and legs shoulder width apart in the center of the studio.