"Never fall in love with a man who speaks sweetly but makes you cry in silence."
My mother's last words to me still echo.
I didn't listen. I thought I was different. Stronger.
But strength doesn't stop heartbreak. And silence doesn't stop bruises.
---
The train screeched to a halt.
I gripped my duffel bag tighter, the cold metal of the door handle numbing my fingers. A new city. A new life. No plan. Just a name I no longer wanted to be associated with and a past I buried six feet deep.
"Amara?" the cab driver called, squinting at the paper in his hand.
I nodded and stepped forward. "That's me."
He looked surprised. Maybe I didn't look like an Amara. Maybe I looked like someone who had run from something but hadn't escaped it completely. Maybe that's because I had.
---
I sank into the cab seat and let the silence hold me. The streets of Crestwood buzzed with city life, loud and fast, the exact opposite of what I'd just come from. That town was quiet. Too quiet. Like the kind of quiet that makes your ears ring.
I looked out the window.
A couple crossed the street, holding hands, laughing.
I used to laugh like that.
Now, I just breathed. And even that was hard some days.
---
The apartment wasn't much. Just a tiny room on the third floor of a rundown building with cracked walls and no elevator. But it was mine. Mine. Not his. Not anyone's. That was enough.
I tossed my bag on the bed and sank down beside it, exhaling like I hadn't breathed in years.
My phone buzzed.
Jayden Rivers.
I froze.
How did he—?
No. He couldn't have found me this quickly.
Blocked. I had blocked him. I swear I did.
But there it was. His name lighting up my screen like a nightmare wearing cologne.
Blocked number.
New city.
Same fear.
I turned the phone off.
---
I started my new job the next morning.
The bookstore was quiet, the smell of paper and ink strangely comforting. The owner, a short woman with red glasses and a love for coffee, barely asked questions. I liked her instantly.
As I stacked novels on the shelves, my fingers brushed over a spine.
"A girl made of glass cannot love a boy made of fire."
Funny. I used to think I was fireproof.
---
By noon, the doorbell rang and in walked a man.
Tall. Dark coat. Sharp jawline. Unapologetically confident.
He didn't glance around like most first-timers did. He walked straight to the counter. Like he owned the air he breathed.
"Looking for something?" I asked, keeping my tone polite, flat.
He smiled. God, he had the kind of smile that made women forget warnings and mothers pray harder.
"Yes," he said. "Do you have Letters to a Burnt Soul?"
I blinked. That was my favorite book. The one I kept hidden under my pillow for years. The one that got me through nights I thought would never end.
"We do," I said quietly. "Second shelf. Middle row."
He walked away, and I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
---
When he returned, he didn't go to the counter.
He leaned against the shelf beside me and held up the book. "You've read this."
It wasn't a question.
I looked at him, really looked. Brown eyes that held storms. A scar on his wrist that said he'd fought something. Maybe someone. Maybe himself.
"Maybe," I said.
"I'm Jayden," he replied. "Jayden Rivers."
The name hit me like cold water. Familiar. Too familiar. Was this the man my new landlord gushed about? The CEO of Rivers Tech who owned half the street?
Figures.
"I'm not impressed," I said.
He laughed. "Good. I'm tired of people who are."
He paid for the book and walked out, but before the door closed, he turned back.
"I'll be back. This place is interesting."
No. You're interesting. And I've had enough of interesting men.
---
That night, I stared at my ceiling.
Jayden Rivers.
Something about him felt like déjà vu wrapped in danger.
I pulled out my journal, flipped to a blank page, and wrote:
> Day One in Crestwood.
Met a man.
Didn't smile. Didn't run.
Progress?
I paused, then added,
> Don't fall. Don't feel. Don't forget why you left.
---
Flashback
I was eight when I first saw my mother with a black eye.
She told me she slipped on the stairs. I believed her.
At thirteen, I stopped believing.
By sixteen, I hated her for staying.
At eighteen, I promised myself I never would.
But at twenty-two, I became her.
Different house. Different man. Same silence.
---
Now I'm twenty-four.
And I'm done.
couldn't sleep.
Not because I was scared.
Not exactly.
It was because I knew how this story ends. I'd watched it a thousand times—my mother in the kitchen, the silence loud enough to make your heart ache. Her eyes swollen from crying. Her voice shaking when she told me not to worry.
And now, here I was. In a new city. In a tiny apartment. Trying not to worry.
A knock on the wall broke my thoughts.
Thin walls. I forgot how paper-thin life could feel sometimes.
The neighbors were arguing—muffled voices, but the rhythm was too familiar. A man shouting. A woman crying. Something slamming.
I closed my eyes and whispered the words I hadn't spoken in a long time.
"Don't become her. Don't become her. Don't become her."
---
The next morning, I woke up before the sun.
There was something safe about mornings. Like the world hadn't decided who it would hurt yet.
I walked to work with my hoodie up and my headphones in, listening to a song Eli once made me download. He called it "healing music."
Eli.
God, I hadn't thought of him in months. Years, really.
But that name… it still curled in my chest like smoke. Not burning, not choking—just lingering. Soft. Faint.
He was my first love.
My safest place.
Until I left.
And I never even said goodbye.
---
"Morning!" the bookstore owner chirped as I walked in. "You're early."
I gave a small smile. "Couldn't sleep."
She handed me a coffee. "You will, eventually. This city has a way of numbing people."
Numbing.
I didn't want to be numb.
I wanted to feel. But only the right things.
Not pain. Not regret. Not shame.
Definitely not Jayden Rivers.
---
He came back.
Of course, he did.
Two hours into my shift, the bell rang and there he was—freshly shaved, white shirt rolled up to the elbows, phone in hand.
Confident. Controlled. Dangerous.
I didn't smile.
"Back already?" I asked, shelving a few returns.
"Books don't read themselves," he said smoothly, placing another title on the counter. "And I like the vibe here."
"It's a bookstore, not a bar."
"Bars don't have you."
I turned sharply. "You don't even know me."
He leaned in a little. "That's the fun part."
---
He stayed longer than necessary.
Asked about my favorite authors. My favorite kind of tea. Whether I liked dogs or cats. Whether I lived alone.
I dodged each question with a polite smile and vague answer. I'd learned how to do that. Charm without opening doors. Smile without saying come in.
But then he asked, "Have you ever been in love?"
And my throat closed.
Because suddenly I wasn't in the bookstore anymore—I was sixteen, sitting in a quiet field, with Eli tracing constellations on my palm.
He whispered, "This is love, right?"
And I whispered back, "I hope so."
I shook my head. "That's not really your business."
Jayden nodded slowly. "Touché. I like a woman with boundaries."
But his smile told a different story. Like he wasn't used to hearing no. Like he thought he could break it down.
Not this time.
Not with me.
---
Later that night, I found the box.
Buried at the bottom of my duffel. I wasn't even looking for it—I was searching for socks, but instead, I found the past.
Old letters. A necklace with a tiny sunflower pendant. And a folded piece of notebook paper.
Eli's handwriting.
If you ever forget who you are, read this. You're the girl who deserves more. Never settle for someone who makes your heart small. — E.
I closed my eyes and pressed the letter to my chest.
I had forgotten.
But maybe it wasn't too late to remember.
I didn't plan to cry.
But that's the thing about healing—it sneaks up on you. It doesn't come with a warning or a neat little calendar to tell you when the pain will return. It just shows up. Uninvited.
I lay back on the small mattress and held Eli's note like it could somehow protect me from myself. From the part of me that still wanted to believe Jayden could be different.
He's not like the others.
He's just intense.
Maybe I'm overthinking it.
Lies I'd grown up listening to. Lies my mother whispered between bruises.
I wouldn't repeat her story.
Not this time.
---
The next day, I told myself to be careful.
To be distant.
But Jayden made that hard.
He didn't just show up—he lingered. A coffee waiting at the bookstore. A single flower left by the register. Questions that sounded harmless… until they didn't.
"Do you talk to anyone back home?"
"What made you move here… really?"
"Are you seeing anyone else?"
I brushed them off with laughter. But inside, my chest tightened like a warning siren I couldn't shut off.
Then, one night, after a long shift, I opened my apartment door…
And froze.
The flower from the store—the same one Jayden had brought me that morning—was lying on my bed.
Inside my locked apartment.
Alone.
I stared at it for a long time.
Then I noticed something else.
A note.
My hands trembled as I unfolded it.
No signature. Just five words.
"You're not hiding from me."