Chapter 6: The Hollow Morning
The first thing I became aware of was warmth. A solid line of heat along my back, an arm heavy across my waist, fingers splayed possessively over my ribs. Then the smell—not just my lavender laundry detergent, but him. His skin, his sleep, something uniquely Harry that had seeped into my sheets. Grey dawn light cut through the slats of my blinds, painting stripes across the tangled comforter.
I lay perfectly still, listening to the deep, even rhythm of his breathing against the back of my neck. My body was a catalogue of aches—a pleasant soreness between my thighs, a twinge in my lower back from the piano bench, a stiffness in my jaw from crying. Physical receipts for the emotional bankruptcy of the last twenty-four hours.
Carefully, I turned my head on the pillow. He was on his side, facing me, still deeply asleep. In the flat morning light, he looked younger. The charming, calculated ease he wore like armor in public was completely gone. His brow was smooth, those long lashes dark against his skin, his lips slightly parted. A faint frown twitched between his eyebrows, as if even his dreams were unsettled. I studied the line of his nose, the shadow of stubble along his jaw, the vulnerable curve of his throat. This was the boy I’d fallen for. Not the frat star, not the soccer phenom, but this unguarded, messy human being who cried in my shower.
And just like that, the warm haze shattered.
Forgiveness was a decision made in the dark, under the influence of exhaustion and physical release and his tears on my skin. Daylight was a brutal editor. It highlighted every crack in the foundation. I’d told him I forgave him. I’d meant it. But forgiveness wasn’t a magic wand. It didn’t un-break the trust. It didn’t delete the image of him walking away on that rooftop, choosing her. It didn’t fill the hollow, anxious space that had taken up residence in my chest months ago.
My heart began a slow, heavy thump against my ribs. The arm across my waist felt less like an anchor and more like a weight. I needed air. I needed space to think without the intoxicating smell of him clouding everything.
I slid out from under his arm with the precision of a bomb defusal expert. The mattress creaked. He murmured something unintelligible, his hand clutching at the empty space where I’d been before settling again. I stood on the cold hardwood, the chill biting into my bare feet. I grabbed the first sweatshirt I found—his, from last night, discarded on the floor. I pulled it on. It drowned me, the sleeves hanging past my fingertips, the collar smelling overwhelmingly of him. I didn’t take it off.
In the kitchen, the silence was a different animal. It was mine. I filled the kettle, the sound of tap water roaring in the quiet. I leaned against the counter, staring at the two clean glasses drying in the rack. Proof of last night’s fragile domestication. My gaze drifted to the cracked photo frame on the bookshelf—me and Aria at the beach last summer, mid-laugh, our hair whipping in the wind. Aria would have opinions. Loud, protective, brutally honest ones. I wasn’t ready to hear them.
The kettle clicked off. I was pouring hot water over a tea bag when I heard the soft pad of feet behind me.
“Hey.”
His voice was sleep-rough, cautious. I didn’t turn. I listened to him move, the rustle of the blanket he’d wrapped around his hips, the sound of him pulling out a chair at my tiny table.
“Hey,” I said, finally facing him.
He looked wrecked in the best way. His hair was a glorious, tangled mess. The blanket was slung low on his hips, exposing the defined lines of his stomach, the trail of dark hair leading down. The morning light loved him, gilding his skin. Hope was a fragile, flickering thing in his green eyes, warring with a deep-seated fear.
“I thought maybe I dreamed it,” he said, offering a small, tentative smile.
“You didn’t dream the part where you flooded my bathroom floor,” I said, turning back to stir my tea. The casual tone felt forced, but it was all I had.
A soft chuckle. “Sorry. I’ll… mop or something.”
Silence stretched, thick and loaded. I brought my mug to the table and sat across from him. I wrapped my hands around the ceramic, letting the heat seep into my palms. He watched every minute movement.
“Nikki…”
“You can stay for breakfast,” I said, cutting him off. My voice was clear, quieter than I expected. “But we need to talk. Really talk. About what this means now. About trust. About… everything.”
The hope in his eyes didn’t dim, but it solidified into something more determined. He nodded slowly. “Okay. Talk. I’m here. I’m listening.”
“It’s not just about you listening,” I said, blowing on my tea. “It’s about you talking. For real. No poetry, no grand declarations you think I want to hear. I need the ugly, boring truth. Starting with Kendall.”
He flinched, just a little, at the name. He looked down at his hands, clasped on the table. “It’s over. It was over the second I left that rooftop. I ended it that night. Called her, told her it was a mistake, that I was in love with someone else.”
“How did she take it?”
He barked a dry, humorless laugh. “How do you think? She called me a spineless coward. Said I’d never be happy. She was probably right, for a while.” He looked up, his gaze pinning me. “But she was wrong about why. I wasn’t happy because I wasn’t with you.”
I took a sip of tea. It was too hot, scalding my tongue. The pain was a welcome distraction. “Why her, Harry? In that moment, on the roof, with me standing right there… why?”
He exhaled, a long, shuddering breath. He ran a hand through his hair, making the curls stand up even more. “It was familiar. It was easy. It was what everyone expected. My friends, my family… they all loved her. Being with her was like stepping back into a pre-approved life. No complications. No…” He gestured at me, at the space between us. “No terrifying, all-consuming feeling that I was in way over my head. With you… it was never just easy fun, was it? Even when we pretended it was. It felt like life or death from the first time you laughed at one of my stupid jokes. That scared the shit out of me.”
The honesty was like a key turning in a rusty lock. It didn’t make it okay. But it made it human.
“So I’m the complicated one,” I said, not a question.
“You’re the real one,” he corrected, his voice fierce. “And I was too much of a coward to choose real. I’m so sorry. I know sorry is just a word. I have to prove it. Every day.”
I believed he meant it. Right now, in my kitchen, wrapped in my blanket, he meant every syllable. The future was a vast, frightening unknown.
“Proving it means things change,” I said, setting my mug down with a decisive click. “No more disappearing for days because you’re ‘in your head.’ No more hiding us from your frat brothers because it’s not convenient. You show up. You answer your phone. You introduce me as your girlfriend. Not your ‘friend.’ Not ‘Nikki, who sings.’ Your girlfriend.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“And you don’t get to use sex as a reset button every time we have a hard conversation. What happened last night… that can’t be our only language.”
A faint blush tinged his cheeks. He nodded. “I know. I got… carried away. I was desperate. I won’t… I’ll do better.”
“And we go slow,” I said, the final, most important point. “I’m not picking up where we left off before the rooftop. That version of us is dead. We’re building something new. And it might not work. This might all blow up in our faces.”
He reached across the table then, his hand covering mine. His skin was warm. “Then we let it blow up together. I’m not running. Not ever again.”
I looked at our hands. His, long-fingered, dotted with faded ink. Mine, disappearing in the sleeve of his sweatshirt. A mismatched pair. A risk.
“Okay,” I whispered.
He squeezed my hand. “Okay.”
The moment hung there, balanced on a knife’s edge between despair and possibility. Then his stomach growled, a loud, absurd rumble in the quiet kitchen. The tension shattered. A real smile broke across my face for the first time that morning.
“Right,” I said, pulling my hand back to stand up. “Breakfast. I have eggs. Maybe bread that isn’t moldy.”
“I’ll help,” he said, standing, clutching the blanket at his hip.
“You’ll help by putting some pants on,” I said, throwing a glance over my shoulder as I went to the fridge. “You’re a distraction.”
I heard his soft laugh behind me. “You’re wearing my shirt.”
I looked down at the oversized fabric swallowing my frame. “It was on the floor. It’s mine now.”
“Fair enough,” he said. I listened to him pad back to my bedroom.
I pulled out eggs, butter, a vaguely soft tomato. The city was properly awake now, the sound of traffic a distant hum. For the first time in months, the hum didn’t sound like loneliness. It sounded like a world waiting. I cracked eggs into a bowl, the sound sharp and definitive. We were broken. We were trying. It was terrifying.
He came back, dressed in his jeans from last night, no shirt. He started searching the drawers for a fork, his bare back to me. I watched the muscles shift under his skin, the trail of ink I knew by heart. The memory of his sobs against my shoulder was still imprinted on my nerves. It existed alongside the memory of his betrayal. Both were true. That was the complicated math of us now.
He found a whisk and started beating the eggs. Our shoulders brushed. Neither of us moved away.
“So,” he said, his voice casual, testing the waters of this new normal. “What’s on your agenda today? World domination? Writing a symphony?”
“Music theory at eleven,” I said, sprinkling salt into the eggs. “Then a shift at the record store from two ’til eight.”
“I have practice at one,” he said. “I could… come by after? Bring you coffee?”
It was a small thing. A simple offer. Before, he would have just shown up, or texted last minute. This was asking. This was a plan.
I looked at him. The morning light was in his eyes, turning them the color of sea glass. There was no smirk, no assumption. Just a question.
“Yeah,” I said, my throat tight. “That would be good.”
He smiled then, a real one that reached his eyes, and it was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. It didn’t fix everything. The cracked photo frame was still cracked. The trust was still a delicate, shattered thing we’d have to piece together one shard at a time. But in that moment, with the smell of eggs cooking and the quiet promise of afternoon coffee hanging between us, it felt like maybe, just maybe, we had a starting point.
The eggs sizzled as they hit the buttered pan, a sound so ordinary it felt revolutionary. He stood close, his body heat a silent counterpoint to the crisp morning air from the window I’d cracked open. We moved around each other in the small kitchen with a cautious, newfound choreography, passing the salt, reaching for plates, his shoulder grazing mine in a way that sent a current straight to my already aching core.
“Burner’s a little wonky,” I said, nudging the pan. “You have to babysit it or one side gets charred.”
“Noted,” he said, his voice low. He tore a piece from the loaf of bread, popping it in his mouth. “So, the record store.New inventory today?”
“Hopefully. Otherwise it’s just me and Phil arguing about the merits of post-Electric Ladyland Hendrix for six hours.” I nudged the eggs with the spatula. “He thinks it’s all self-indulgent nonsense.”
“Phil’s wrong,” Harry said, easily, like we’d been having this conversation for years. Maybe we had, in another lifetime.“Band of Gypsys is a masterpiece. The Machine Gun solo alone…”
He trailed off, and I glanced up. He was looking at me, not at the eggs, with an expression of such unvarnished fondness it knocked the air from my lungs.It was the look he’d given Kendall on the rooftop. But here, now, in my kitchen with the smell of burning toast beginning to whisper from the toaster, it was for me.It was mine.
“Toast is smoking,” I said, turning quickly back to the stove, my cheeks hot.
He laughed, a real, unfiltered sound, and swatted the toaster’s lever.The charred slices popped up. “Rescued.” He scraped the blackened bits into the sink.“See?Showing up.Answering calls. Rescuing breakfast. I’m a natural at this boyfriend thing.”
The word hung between us, shiny and unfamiliar.Boyfriend.I plated the eggs, my movements deliberately slow. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.You’ve rescued one breakfast. A pigeon could do that.”
“A pigeon would shit on the toast. I’m at least a… helpful sparrow.” He brought the plates to the table, our fingers brushing during the exchange.The contact was deliberate, testing. I didn’t pull away.We ate in a quiet that was no longer tense, just thoughtful. The eggs were fine, a little dry.The toast was mostly carbon. It was the best meal I’d had in months. Sunlight fully filled the room now, exposing the dust on my bookshelf, the crack in the photo frame, the hopeful fatigue on his face.
“I should go,” he said finally, washing down the last bite with water.“Let you get ready. I’ve got practice.” He stood, taking his plate to the sink.He hesitated, his back to me. “The coffee.Later. Still okay?”
“Yeah.” I stood too, leaning against the counter.He turned, facing me.The space felt charged again, but with a different energy. Not the desperate, clawing need from the practice room or the weeping collapse on my sofa. This was quieter, a question mark hovering in the three feet of worn linoleum between us.
He closed the distance, but stopped just short of touching me. He smelled like my soap, my towels, my apartment.“Last night…” he started, then shook his head. “I don’t have the right words.Thank you.For letting me in.For the shower. For… this.” He gestured at the messy kitchen, at us.
“Don’t thank me,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Just don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t.” He said it like a vow. Then he leaned in, his movement slow enough that I could have stepped back.I didn’t.His lips brushed my forehead, a chaste, lingering kiss. It was tender.It was devastating. It felt more intimate than anything that had happened in the dark.He pulled away, his green eyes searching mine.I managed a small nod. A ghost of a smile touched his lips, and then he was gathering his damp, crumpled shirt from the bedroom floor, pulling his shoes on by the door.
“See you after practice,” he said, one hand on the doorknob.
“Your shirt,” I said, plucking at the oversized fabric I still wore.“Keep it.” He opened the door, the normal hallway sounds flooding in. “Wear it. It looks better on you anyway.”
And then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving me alone in the suddenly-too-quiet kitchen. I sagged against the counter, pulling the collar of his shirt up over my nose. It smelled like us, a tangled blend of sweat and sex and lavender and regret. My body felt like a battlefield, quiet now but littered with the evidence of recent combat.I went to the bathroom to get ready for class. My reflection in the steam-fogged mirror was familiar, yet changed. There were shadows under my eyes, but my lips were slightly swollen from his kisses. The soreness between my thighs was a persistent, physical reminder of his apology and my capitulation. I turned on the faucet, splashing cold water on my face. The photo of me and Aria on the beach smiled from the other room, a frozen moment of uncomplicated joy. I thought of her reaction, of Hanna’s raised eyebrow, of the inevitable interrogation.I wasn’t ready.My phone buzzed on the counter. A text from Harry, already.Practice field.Thinking about your eggs.They were terrible. Best I ever had.A laugh bubbled up, unexpected and sharp, catching in my throat. It felt strange, this lightness.It felt fragile.I typed back, my thumbs clumsy.
You cooked them.Blame the chef.See you later.
I hit send before I could overthink it.The day stretched ahead: theory class, the record store, the promise of coffee. It was a schedule.It was a structure. It was a life I had lived before him, and would live after him if I had to. But the afternoon now held a shape, a specific gravity, because he would be in it.
I dressed in my own clothes, jeans and an oversized sweater, but I folded his shirt neatly and placed it on my pillow.A placeholder.A flag planted on uncertain ground. As I gathered my books for class, the silence pressed in again, but it was different. It wasn't empty.It was waiting. The cracked photo frame watched me from the shelf, the fracture in the glass splitting Aria’s laughing face from mine. We were still connected, but the break was there, permanent.Some things, once broken, don’t go back together the same way. They just hold a new, more fragile shape.
My theory professor’s droning voice was a distant hum.I stared at the staves on the page, the notes blurring into abstract patterns. My mind kept replaying the morning in snapshots: the stripe of light on his sleeping face, the feel of his lips on my forehead, the easy way he’d agreed to my terms. Your girlfriend. The words felt foreign and dangerous, like trying on a costume from a play I wasn’t sure I could perform.My phone vibrated in my bag.I didn’t check it. It vibrated again ten minutes later.And again five minutes after that. A tightness began to coil in my stomach, a familiar, sickening dread. The old patterns were written deep in my neural pathways.Disappearing acts.Vague excuses.Something came up with the guys. Practice ran late.Got caught in some drama.The lecture ended.Students shuffled out around me. I remained in my seat, my fingers cold as I finally pulled out my phone.Three texts. All from Harry.First one: Running early.Coach canceled film. Be at the store by 4?
Second one, two minutes later: Actually, just saw Phil posting about a vendor meeting.You covering for him?
Third one: If you’re free at 4, I’ll be there.If not, no worries.Just let me know.
I stared at the screen.He wasn’t canceling.He was asking.He was checking. He was showing up. The tightness in my stomach unfurled, leaving behind a sensation so strange it took me a moment to recognize it.It was relief. It was trust, in its most embryonic, tentative form.I typed back, my fingers steadier now.
Phil’s here ’til 5.Vendors came yesterday.He just likes to complain. 4 is good.The three dots appeared immediately, then his response.See you then. Told you.Helpful sparrow.A smile, unbidden, touched my lips. I shoved my phone and books into my bag, the weight of them familiar and grounding. As I walked across campus towards the record store, the autumn air sharp in my lungs, I didn’t feel the soaring, careless happiness of before.That was gone, and its ghost was a warning. What I felt was something quieter, more deliberate. It was the careful, watchful calm that comes after a storm has passed, when you’re just beginning to survey the damage, wondering what you can rebuild, and what you’ll have to leave in ruins.
The air inside ‘Vinyl Frontier’ was a familiar cocktail of dust, aging paper, and the faint, sweet ozone of old electronics. Phil was behind the counter, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, scowling at a spreadsheet. He grunted in acknowledgement as the bell above the door chimed my arrival.
“Vendor was a no-show.Again. Useless.” He didn’t look up. “Alphabetize the new arrivals in the psych-rock section. And for God’s sake, if anyone asks for that TikTok song about the red dress, the answer is no, we don’t have it, and please leave.”
“Charming as ever, Phil.”
I shoved my bag under the counter and slipped into the rhythm of the place. My hands knew the work: sliding records from cardboard boxes, checking spines, filing them away. The tactile routine was a balm. Each album cover was a tiny, solid world. I could focus on the grainy feel of the cardboard, the typography, the whiff of mildew from a water-damaged corner. For two hours, my mind was mercifully quiet, occupied only by the alphabetical order of bands with names like ‘The Twisted Cognition’ and ‘Azure Void.’
The bell chimed again at 3:58.
I didn’t have to look. I felt it—a shift in the atmosphere, a tightening of the air in my chest. My fingers paused on the spine of a ‘Fever Tree’ LP.
“Hey.”
His voice was a soft rumble from the doorway. I turned. He leaned against the frame, a paper carrier holding two coffee cups in one hand. He wore a clean, dark green henley, his curls still damp from a post-practice shower. He looked nervous. The sight of that, the visible effort, did something complicated to my insides.
“Hey yourself,” I said. My voice worked. “You’re early.”
“Coach was in a good mood. I ran.” He held up the coffees. “I didn’t know how you took it. So one’s black, one has a stupid amount of sugar and oat milk. You can choose your fighter.”
Phil peered over his glasses, his gaze flicking between us. “Styles. Here to actually buy something, or just to loiter and depress my sales figures?”
“Both, maybe,” Harry said, pushing off the doorframe and walking in. He set the coffees on the counter near me, close but not crowding. “How’s the Hendrix debate today, Phil?”
“He was a genius who lost the plot. My stance is immutable. Take your beverages to the listening booth. You’re blocking the aesthetic.”
Harry picked up the cups and nodded his head towards the back corner, where a worn leather couch and a pair of vintage headphones sat. A question. I grabbed the sweeter-smelling coffee and followed him. The booth was a cramped, soundproofed cube lined with egg-crate foam. He sat on one end of the couch, leaving a clear foot of space between us. I took the other end.
We sat in silence for a moment, sipping. The sugar and oat milk hit my tongue—perfect. He’d remembered, or he’d guessed right.
“So,” he said, staring at a tear in the foam wall. “How was theory?”
“Dull. How was practice?”
“Good. Hard. My knee’s pissed off.” He rolled the joint absently, then stopped. “This is weird, right? This talking-about-our-days thing.”
“It’s what people do,” I said, but a small smile threatened. “It’s weird because we’ve never really done it before. We skipped a few steps.”
“We skipped all the steps.” He finally looked at me. “I like your sweater.”
It was an old, pilled thing, charcoal grey. I’d worn it a hundred times around him before. “Thanks.”
Another silence, but it was softer now, filling with the faint sound of Phil’s classical music filtering from the main room speakers. Harry’s thumb traced the rim of his coffee lid. “Aria texted me.”
The calm shattered. Ice water dumped into my veins. “What? When?”
“About an hour ago. It just said, ‘If you hurt her again, I know people who dispose of bodies in Lake Michigan. They’re artists. It’ll be abstract.’” He quoted it verbatim, a faint, impressed horror in his tone. “She’s terrifying. I respect it.”
The laugh burst out of me, sharp and surprised. The tension cracked. “Yeah. That’s Aria. She’s protective.”
“She should be.” He set his coffee down on the floor, turning to face me more fully. The couch creaked. “I know I’ve got to face them. Your friends. That’s part of it. I’m not… I’m not asking you to run interference. I’ll take whatever they dish out.”
This was the work. Not the sex, not the crying, but this: the awkward, brutal logistics of reconstruction. “Hanna will be colder. More analytical. She’ll ask you questions you don’t have answers for.”
“I’ll try to answer them anyway.”
I studied his face—the determination there, the lack of a defensive smirk. It was new. It was untested. “They want to meet for drinks tomorrow night. At The Rusty Nail.”
He didn’t flinch. “Okay. What time?”
“Eight.” I took a long drink, the sweet coffee grounding me. “Don’t wear your frat shirt. Don’t try to charm them. Just be… this.”
“This is pretty fucking scared, just so you know.”
“Good. They’ll like that better than false confidence.”
A comfortable quiet settled between us. We finished our coffees. He got up and browsed the stacks, pulling out a worn copy of Neil Young’s ‘On the Beach’. He brought it to the counter and paid Phil with actual cash, making small talk about the Bulls’ losing streak. It was shockingly normal. I watched him, this boy who lived in a world of locker rooms and keg stands, standing in a dusty record store, talking sports with a cynical old man, just to be near me. The performance felt minimal. The intention felt vast.
My shift ended at eight. He helped me pull the gate down, Phil having already vanished into the back. The night air was crisp, sharp with falling leaves and car exhaust. We stood on the sidewalk under the flickering neon of the store sign.
“Can I walk you home?” he asked. His hands were in his pockets, shoulders hunched slightly against the chill.
“It’s six blocks in the wrong direction for you.”
“I don’t care.”
So we walked. Not touching. Our shoulders bumped once on a narrow part of the sidewalk, and we both adjusted our gait, creating a careful buffer. The city sounds filled the space our words didn’t. It wasn’t the loaded silence from before. It was the silence of two people thinking, both aware of the fragile bridge stretching between them.
We reached my building’s stoop. The yellow porch light made his eyes look shadowed.
“Tomorrow night,” he said. “The Nail. Eight.”
“Yeah.”
He shifted his weight. “Do you… want me to come up?”
The question hung there, unadorned. No pressure, just an option. My body hummed with a treacherous yes. The memory of his weight on my sofa, his tears on my skin, was a live wire. But I heard my own words from the kitchen that morning. You don’t get to use sex as a reset button.
“Not tonight,” I said, the words feeling both brave and cowardly. “I think… we should let today just be today. Coffee. A walk. That’s enough.”
He nodded, swallowing. I saw the flash of disappointment, but it was quickly followed by acceptance. “Okay. You’re right. That’s enough. It’s good.” He took a step back. “Text me when you get inside.”
“Harry, it’s my building.”
“Humor me. Please.”
I nodded. He gave me one last, long look, then turned and walked down the street, hands back in his pockets. I watched until he turned the corner, his silhouette swallowed by the night. I climbed the stairs, the familiar ache of the long day settling in my bones. Inside, I locked the door and leaned against it. I pulled out my phone.
I’m in.
His reply came almost instantly.
Good. Sleep well, Nikki.
I placed the phone on the charger. The apartment was silent, still holding the ghost of him from last night. His shirt was still folded on my pillow. I didn’t put it on. I left it there, a landmark. I got ready for bed, the routines mechanical. When I turned off the light and lay in the dark, the calm from the record store was gone. In its place was a low-grade, relentless buzz of anxiety. This was the real work: lying alone in the quiet, choosing to believe the promise of a tomorrow where he would show up, where he would face my friends, where he would stay. Choosing to believe that the ruins we were sifting through could ever form a foundation for anything solid. The fear was a cold companion. But it wasn’t the only one. There was a flicker, too small to name, warm and stubborn in the dark. It was just a spark. But it was there.