Back in the present, Naomi blinked at the bottle she now held in her hand. The glass was cold, grounding her, yet her chest felt unbearably warm. She exhaled sharply, trying to shake the memory, but it clung stubbornly, unspooling more moments she had worked so hard to bury.The wine aisle hadn't just been their beginning—it had become their silent meeting ground. Weeks later, Jeremiah had found her here again, leaning casually by the same counter as though fate had placed him there.
She hadn't wanted to notice, but he had noticed her, always. And soon, small conversations over wine bottles had slipped into longer talks over coffee, then dinners, then nights where the silence between them was as loud as their words.Naomi pressed the bottle against her chest, closing her eyes briefly. The store around her carried on as if nothing had shifted—mothers comparing cereal boxes, a cashier calling for a price check, a child tugging at his father's sleeve in the snack aisle. Yet inside her, the air was thick with the weight of what once was.Her lips parted as if to sigh, but no sound came. Instead, she placed the bottle into her cart with quiet finality. She couldn't afford to dwell. Jeremiah's shadow was already too present in her life, haunting her every pause.
She gripped the cart handle and pushed forward, forcing her focus to the fluorescent lights above and the hum of the refrigerated section ahead. But even as she tried to anchor herself to the present, she could still feel it—the ghost of that first touch, the echo of his voice, and the unshakable knowledge that some beginnings had a way of following you, no matter how far you ran.Her phone buzzed in her bag, startling her. For a moment, she almost hoped it wouldn't be him. Almost.She didn't check. Not yet.Instead, Naomi turned down the next aisle, her knuckles tightening around the handle. The bottle of wine rattled faintly against the side of the cart, a reminder that some choices were never just about groceries.
Naomi tossed the last item into her shopping basket—a carton of milk she wasn't even sure she needed—and made her way to the cashier. The hum of the conveyor belt and the soft beep of scanned items barely registered in her ears. Her mind was still back at the wine counter, still wrapped in that ghostly touch of memory she had tried to shake off.
By the time she unlocked her apartment door, she felt drained. The faint scent of lavender from her candle still lingered in the air, clinging like an old embrace. She kicked off her shoes at the door, dropped her grocery bag on the counter, and walked straight to the bathroom. She needed the water, needed its cleansing, its mercy—the only thing capable of muffling the ache that gnawed at her chest.
Hot water cascaded over her skin, steam clouding the mirror, fogging the glass, but the images in her mind were stubborn. Jeremiah's laugh, his smile when he leaned closer at the wine counter, the way his hand brushed hers like fate itself had aligned them—all of it replayed in cruel clarity. She pressed her palms against the cool tiles, willing the memories to dissolve, to be carried down the drain with the rushing water.
Then—
Her phone rang.
The sharp sound cut through the steady drum of the shower. Once. Twice. Again. It wouldn't stop. Naomi's heart raced as she scrambled, stepping out quicker than she intended, water dripping onto the mat in uneven drops. She snatched a towel, wrapping it around herself as she darted into the bedroom, leaving a wet trail behind her.
She grabbed her phone from the nightstand, screen still lit with the insistent buzz. Tasha.
Naomi pressed the green icon, breathless.
"Hello?"
"Girl," Tasha's voice burst through, full of its usual warmth, "you home yet? I was about to hunt you down myself."
Naomi sank onto the bed, her damp hair clinging to her shoulders, her chest still heaving from the rush. Relief tugged at her lips, but the heaviness in her chest didn't ease.
"Yeah," she whispered, her voice softer than she meant. "I just got in."
Naomi wiped the damp strands of hair clinging to her face as she balanced the phone between her ear and shoulder, still toweling off with her free hand. Droplets slid down her arms and fell onto the hardwood floor, tiny beads of evidence that she had rushed out of the shower far too quickly.
" And I was in the shower when you first called," she said, catching her breath, her voice softer than usual, the steam still lingering in her lungs.
On the other end, Tasha chuckled, that familiar, light-hearted sound that always seemed to pull Naomi back from the edges of her thoughts. "Of course you were. I just wanted to check in on you before I go to bed. Be good, sleep early. Goodnight, love."
Naomi's lips curved into a faint smile, though her chest felt heavier than she wanted it to. "Night, Tash. And… thanks."
There was a pause, then Tasha's voice came through, firm and teasing all at once. "For what, girl? You don't have to thank me. You know I'm your ride or die. That's never gonna change. You're my best friend, Naomi. Love you."
The words washed over Naomi like the warmth of a blanket fresh from the dryer. They soothed something restless inside her, though not enough to silence the ache completely. "Alright. Love you too. Goodnight." She whispered the last word as if it carried more weight than she wanted Tasha to hear.
The line clicked, leaving only the hum of silence, and for a moment, Naomi just stood there in her dimly lit apartment, the phone still pressed against her ear. It felt strange, how a simple goodnight could stretch into something that lingered long after the call ended.
She lowered the phone onto the dresser and caught her reflection in the mirror—wet hair clinging to her neck, water droplets trailing along her collarbone, eyes too tired for someone her age. The mirror had become something of an enemy lately, a reminder of how different she looked compared to the girl she used to be—the girl Jeremiah once knew. The one who laughed without hesitation, who believed promises weren't so easily broken.
Naomi drew in a shaky breath and slipped into her robe, tying it tightly around her waist as if it could hold her together better than her thoughts could. The apartment was quiet, but not the comforting kind of quiet—it was the kind that pressed on her chest, amplifying the hollow spaces inside her.
She padded softly to the kitchen, her bare feet whispering against the floor. The grocery bag from earlier still sat on the counter, the bottle of wine standing tall like a sentinel, waiting for her. She brushed her fingers against the cool glass, remembering how she'd stared too long at the rows of bottles at the store, how her chest had clenched when her mind replayed the memory of Jeremiah's hand brushing against hers at the wine counter months ago.
Naomi closed her eyes, letting the ghost of that touch tangle with the warmth of Tasha's words. Two different kinds of love, two different weights on her heart—one that healed, one that scarred.
Shaking her head, she pulled away, opting instead to unpack the groceries slowly, methodically, as if each carton and packet could delay the creeping loneliness that settled around her after Tasha's call ended. She wanted to cling to her best friend's reassurance, to let it be enough, but the quiet walls of her apartment reminded her that when the night stretched long, she was still alone with her thoughts.
Naomi carried the phone back to her bedside table before slipping beneath the covers. She stared at the screen one last time, reading Tasha's name in the call log. A faint smile touched her lips again. For tonight, that would be enough. She pulled the blanket to her chin, listening to the rhythm of her own breathing until it steadied.
Sleep didn't come easily these days. But as she closed her eyes, she held onto the echo of Tasha's voice, the one thread keeping her anchored in a world that felt like it was unraveling piece by piece.
The next morning,