A FACE I CAN'T FORGET

MISSCONFUSED (Vol. 1)

Chapter 2: A Face I Can't Forget

---

Sleep didn't come easy that night.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling like it held the answers to every question I'd ever had, watching shadows shift as cars passed on the street below. My mind was a hamster wheel of thoughts, spinning endlessly over the same ground without getting anywhere.

Kiyan had liked me. Actually liked me. The kiss behind the bleachers, the way he'd looked at me, the whispered promises—none of it had been a game. He'd been seventeen and terrified and had made the worst possible choice, but underneath all of it, his feelings had been real.

I didn't know what to do with that information.

For five years, I'd built my entire narrative around being the victim of a cruel joke. The pretty girl who'd been too naive, too trusting, too desperate for validation. I'd used that story as armor, as justification for keeping people at arm's length. *See what happens when you let someone in? They destroy you.*

But now that story had cracks in it. Now there was nuance where there had only been black and white. And I wasn't sure if that made things better or infinitely worse.

I rolled onto my side, grabbing my phone from the nightstand. 2:47 AM. Fantastic.

My thumb hovered over the messages app, over Beryl's name. She'd be asleep by now—she was one of those infuriating people who went to bed at a reasonable hour and woke up refreshed and ready to face the day. But the urge to reach out was overwhelming. To hear her voice, even just through text. To have her tell me everything was going to be okay.

*She said she's always here,* I reminded myself. *But that doesn't mean you should abuse the privilege.*

I put the phone down.

Then picked it up again.

Then put it down.

"This is pathetic," I muttered to the darkness. "You are a grown woman. Act like one."

I closed my eyes and tried to force my brain into submission. Counted sheep. Counted backwards from one hundred. Tried that thing where you systematically relax every muscle in your body, starting from your toes.

Nothing worked.

Because every time I started to drift off, I saw his face. Not Kiyan's—though he made plenty of appearances in my mental torture session. No, the face that kept floating up from the depths of my subconscious was different. Softer. Warmer. Eyes that crinkled at the corners when she smiled.

Beryl.

*Be careful with your heart.*

What had she meant by that? The words had been playing on loop in my head all evening, a puzzle I couldn't solve. Beryl wasn't the type for cryptic warnings. She was direct, sometimes brutally so. If she had something to say, she said it.

Except, apparently, when she didn't.

I finally fell asleep somewhere around 4 AM, my dreams a confusing tangle of coffee shops and conference rooms and two faces that kept blurring into each other until I couldn't tell them apart.

---

The alarm was an assault.

I slapped at my phone with the desperate flailing of someone who was not ready to be conscious. It took three attempts to actually turn it off, by which point I was awake enough to register the pounding headache behind my eyes and the general sense of existential dread that came with sleeping for approximately twelve minutes.

"Coffee," I croaked to no one. "Need coffee."

The shower helped marginally. By the time I'd gone through my morning routine—abbreviated version, because I was running late and also didn't care—I almost felt like a functioning human being. Almost.

My phone buzzed as I was wrestling my hair into something approximating a ponytail.

**Beryl:** *running late. meet at the office instead of coffee?*

I frowned at the screen. Beryl was never late. She was pathologically early to everything, the kind of person who showed up to parties before the host was ready. For her to be running late was practically a sign of the apocalypse.

**Me:** *everything ok?*

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

**Beryl:** *yeah. just overslept. see you there.*

Something about the message felt off. Too short, too casual, too unlike the Beryl I knew. But I didn't have time to analyze it—I was already twenty minutes behind schedule and my mother was making pointed comments about breakfast that I was going to have to ignore.

"I'm leaving!" I called, grabbing my bag and heading for the door.

"Without eating? Asenath, you need—"

"Love you, bye!"

I escaped before she could finish the lecture. Parental concern was great and all, but not when I was running on four hours of sleep and the emotional equivalent of a garbage fire.

The walk to work was usually my favorite part of the day—fifteen minutes of relative peace before the chaos of the office consumed me. But today, I couldn't enjoy it. My mind kept circling back to the same questions, the same faces, the same overwhelming sense that my life was about to get very, very complicated.

I was so lost in thought that I almost walked right past the office building. Almost walked right into the person standing outside it, too.

"Whoa, careful!"

Hands caught my shoulders, steadying me. I looked up, an apology already forming on my lips, and froze.

Kiyan.

Of course it was Kiyan.

"Are you stalking me?" I demanded, stepping back out of his reach. "Because that would be very on-brand for you."

"I'm not stalking you. I have a meeting." He held up his hands in surrender. "This is my client's office. I'm allowed to be here."

"At 8:30 in the morning?"

"The meeting's at nine. I wanted to grab coffee first." He paused, looking at me with an expression that was irritatingly close to concern. "Did you sleep at all last night?"

"That's none of your business."

"You have circles under your eyes."

"They're designer circles. Very fashionable. All the celebrities are doing it."

He laughed—a real laugh, surprised and genuine—and something twisted in my chest. I remembered that laugh. Remembered how it had made me feel, back when I'd been stupid enough to think he was laughing with me instead of at me.

"Same old Asenath," he said, shaking his head. "You always did deflect with humor."

"It's a defense mechanism. Very healthy. My therapist would be proud."

"You have a therapist?"

"I should have a therapist. After everything you put me through." The words came out sharper than I intended, and I saw him flinch. Good. Let him flinch. "Sorry, was that too real for your morning coffee?"

"No." He met my eyes, his expression serious. "I deserve that. I deserve worse than that, honestly."

"Glad we're on the same page."

An awkward silence descended. I should have walked away—should have gone inside and started my day and pretended this encounter had never happened. But something kept me rooted to the spot. Some masochistic need to understand, to unravel the mystery of who Kiyan Sharma actually was.

"Can I ask you something?" I heard myself say.

"Anything."

"Why did you come back? To this city, I mean. There are marketing jobs everywhere. You didn't have to work with the same company where your high school victim is employed."

He was quiet for a moment, considering the question. "Honestly? I didn't know you worked here. Not until I walked in for that first meeting and saw your name on the door."

"That doesn't answer the question."

"I came back because this is home. My family's here. My roots are here." He paused. "And because I was tired of running away from my past. I figured if I was going to become a better person, I had to face the things I'd done. The people I'd hurt."

"How very after-school special of you."

"I know how it sounds. But it's the truth." He took a step closer, and I forced myself not to retreat. "Seeing you yesterday... it wasn't part of the plan. But maybe it should have been. Maybe the universe was telling me I couldn't move forward until I'd made things right with you."

"The universe," I repeated flatly. "You think the universe arranged for us to end up at the same company so you could apologize for being a terrible person five years ago."

"When you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous."

"That's because it is ridiculous."

"Fair enough." He smiled, and there it was again—that twist in my chest, that involuntary response to his presence. I hated it. Hated how my body remembered things my mind wanted to forget. "I should let you get to work. But, Asenath?"

"What."

"I meant what I said yesterday. I'm going to prove to you that I've changed. However long it takes."

He walked past me into the building, leaving me standing on the sidewalk like an idiot, the morning sun warm on my face and my heart doing things I absolutely did not authorize.

---

The office was already buzzing when I arrived—that particular energy of people who had too much to do and not enough time to do it. I made a beeline for the kitchen, desperate for caffeine, and found Priya already there, stirring her third cup of the morning with the intensity of someone performing a ritual sacrifice.

"You look terrible," she said by way of greeting.

"Thanks. It's a new look I'm trying."

"Is it stress? Because if it's stress, I have some very strong opinions about work-life balance that HR has asked me to stop sharing."

"It's not stress. It's—" I hesitated, unsure how much to reveal. "Complicated personal stuff."

Priya's eyes narrowed. "Does this complicated personal stuff have anything to do with the way you and our new client were looking at each other yesterday?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"There was tension. Visible, palpable tension. The kind of tension that usually means either you want to kill someone or kiss them. Sometimes both."

"Neither," I said firmly. "We knew each other in high school. It was a long time ago."

"Uh-huh." She didn't look convinced. "Well, whatever it is, keep it out of the conference room. We can't afford to lose this account because of teenage drama."

"It wasn't—" I stopped, realizing there was no way to finish that sentence without revealing too much. "Fine. Professional. I can do professional."

"See that you do."

She swept out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with my coffee and my spiraling thoughts. I took a long sip, letting the caffeine work its magic, and tried to center myself. Today was going to be fine. I was going to be fine. I was a competent adult who could handle running into her high school almost-boyfriend at her place of work without having a complete mental breakdown.

The pep talk was only moderately convincing.

I headed to my desk, expecting to find Beryl already there. She wasn't. Her chair was empty, her computer dark, her mug from yesterday still sitting on the desk where she'd left it.

I checked my phone. No new messages.

This was officially weird.

"Has anyone seen Beryl?" I asked the general vicinity.

Marcus, the junior copywriter who sat two desks over, looked up from his screen. "She's in the small conference room. Been there since she got in."

"The small conference room? Why?"

"Don't know. She seemed upset about something."

My stomach dropped. Beryl, upset. Beryl, who was always steady and calm and together. Beryl, who had been acting strange since yesterday morning.

I abandoned my desk and headed for the small conference room—the one tucked in the back corner that people used for private phone calls and crying sessions they didn't want witnessed. The door was closed, the blinds drawn.

I knocked softly. "Beryl? It's me."

Silence. Then: "Give me a minute."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just need—" Her voice cracked. "I just need a minute."

She was crying. Beryl was crying, alone in a conference room, and she didn't want me to see.

"I'm coming in," I said, and opened the door before she could protest.

She was sitting at the table, her face turned away, one hand pressed to her eyes. Even from this angle, I could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her whole body was curled in on itself like she was trying to make herself smaller.

"Beryl." I crossed the room and dropped into the chair beside her. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"Nothing. It's nothing. I'm just being stupid."

"You're not stupid. You're never stupid." I reached out and put my hand on her arm. "Talk to me. Please."

She finally looked at me, and my heart seized. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks damp with tears she'd tried to wipe away. She looked shattered in a way I'd never seen before.

"It's really nothing," she said, her voice thick. "I just... I had a moment. It happens."

"A moment about what?"

She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. The struggle on her face was almost painful to watch—like there were words trapped inside her that she desperately wanted to release but couldn't.

"You and Kiyan," she finally said.

I blinked. "What about me and Kiyan?"

"Yesterday. After work. You went to talk to him."

"Yeah. He wanted to explain what happened in high school."

"And? How did it go?"

"It was... intense. He told me the truth about what happened. Why he said those things." I paused, trying to read her expression. "He said he actually did like me. That he panicked when his friends found out and lied to protect his ego."

Something flickered across her face—there and gone too quickly to identify. "And you believed him?"

"I don't know. Maybe. He seemed genuine."

She nodded slowly, her gaze dropping to the table. "So what now? Are you going to forgive him? Start over? Give him another chance?"

"I don't know that either. It's all still really fresh." I squeezed her arm gently. "But what does this have to do with why you're upset?"

The silence stretched out, filling the room like water rising. Beryl sat motionless, staring at nothing, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles were white.

"Do you remember," she said quietly, "when we were fifteen?"

The question caught me off guard. "That's a pretty broad timeframe."

"The summer before sophomore year. When your family went to that beach house and you invited me along."

I did remember. A week of sun and sand and staying up too late, the two of us sharing a room and talking until dawn. It had been one of the best weeks of my life.

"Yeah, I remember. What about it?"

Beryl took a breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper.

"That was the week I realized I was in love with you."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I sat there, frozen, unable to process what I was hearing.

"We were on the beach," she continued, not looking at me. "It was late—maybe midnight. Everyone else was asleep, but we'd snuck out to look at the stars. You were lying on your back in the sand, pointing out constellations you'd learned from some book, making up stories about them. And I looked at you, and I thought... this is it. This is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with."

"Beryl—"

"I know. I know." She laughed, but it was a broken sound. "You were my best friend. You had a crush on Kiyan. You were straight, or at least I assumed you were. I told myself it would pass. That it was just a phase, just the intensity of teenage friendship blown out of proportion."

"Why didn't you ever—"

"Tell you?" She finally looked at me, and the pain in her eyes made me want to cry. "Because I was terrified. Terrified of losing you. You were the most important person in my life, and I couldn't risk destroying that for something you didn't feel. So I buried it. Pushed it down. Convinced myself that being your friend was enough."

"For seven years?"

"For seven years." She smiled sadly. "I got really good at pretending."

I didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to feel. Everything I thought I knew about our friendship was being rewritten in real-time, fifteen years of memories suddenly cast in a different light.

"When Kiyan did what he did to you in high school," Beryl said, "part of me was relieved. I know that's terrible. I know I should have only felt anger on your behalf. But there was this small, awful part of me that was glad he'd ruined his chances with you. That thought maybe, if you stopped looking at him, you might start looking at me."

"Beryl..."

"But you didn't. You pulled away from everyone, including me. And I thought—I thought I'd lost you anyway. Not to him, but to what he'd done. So I backed off. Gave you space. Waited for you to come back to me."

"And I did," I said softly.

"You did. And things went back to normal, more or less. We were friends again. Best friends. And I told myself it was enough." Her voice cracked. "Until yesterday. Until I saw the way you looked at him. Until you agreed to meet him alone."

"It wasn't—I wasn't—"

"I know. I know it was just a conversation. But watching you walk out that door, knowing you were going to him..." She pressed her hand to her chest like she was trying to hold herself together. "It felt like losing you all over again. To the same person. And I couldn't—I just couldn't—"

She broke off, tears spilling down her cheeks. I sat there, stunned and overwhelmed and completely out of my depth.

Beryl loved me. Had loved me for seven years. Had watched me pine over Kiyan, had comforted me when he destroyed me, had been quietly, desperately in love with me the whole time.

And I'd had no idea.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping at her face. "I shouldn't have told you. It's not fair to dump this on you when you're already dealing with so much. I just—I couldn't hold it in anymore. Seeing you with him, seeing the way you still react to him after everything he did... I couldn't keep pretending."

"Beryl." I reached out and took her hands in mine. They were trembling. "Look at me."

She did, her eyes swimming with unshed tears.

"You're my best friend," I said slowly, carefully, aware that every word mattered. "You've been my best friend for fifteen years. You've seen me at my worst. You've held me together when I was falling apart. Whatever happens—whatever this means—that's never going to change."

"You can't promise that."

"Watch me."

Something in her expression shifted—hope warring with fear, vulnerability she'd kept hidden for so long finally exposed. "You don't hate me?"

"I could never hate you."

"But you don't—" She stopped, swallowed. "You don't feel the same way."

I thought about it. Really thought about it. Not just a reflexive denial, but a genuine examination of my own feelings.

Did I love Beryl? Yes, absolutely. She was family in every way that mattered.

But was I *in love* with her?

I'd never considered it. Never allowed myself to consider it. She was Beryl—constant, reliable, always there. The background radiation of my life, so fundamental to my existence that I'd stopped noticing it the way you stop noticing oxygen.

But now, sitting here, holding her hands and watching the tears track down her cheeks... something stirred. Something that might have been awareness. Or curiosity. Or the first trembling notes of something I didn't have a name for yet.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I've never... I never thought about you that way. About anyone that way, really. Since Kiyan, I've kind of been closed off to the whole romance thing."

"I know."

"But that doesn't mean—" I struggled to find the right words. "It doesn't mean I couldn't. It just means I haven't. Yet."

Her eyes widened slightly. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I need time. To process all of this. To figure out what I actually feel, about you, about Kiyan, about everything." I squeezed her hands. "I'm not saying yes. But I'm not saying no either. Can you live with that?"

She was quiet for a long moment, her gaze searching my face like she was trying to find something hidden there. Then, slowly, she nodded.

"I've waited seven years," she said. "I can wait a little longer."

"Thank you. For telling me. For trusting me with this."

"Thank you for not running away."

I laughed despite myself—a release of tension that had been building since the moment she'd said those impossible words. "Where would I run? You're my ride home half the time."

She laughed too, watery but real, and something settled between us. Not resolution—this was far from resolved—but acknowledgment. We were on new ground now, unknown territory, but at least we were navigating it together.

"We should probably get back to work," I said reluctantly. "Before people start wondering if we've both quit."

"Right. Work. Being productive. That thing we're supposed to do." She wiped her eyes one more time and took a deep breath. "How do I look? Presentable?"

"Like you've been crying at work. But in a very chic, fashion-forward way."

"Perfect. That's exactly the aesthetic I was going for."

We stood, gathering ourselves for the transition back to normalcy. At the door, I paused, turning to look at her.

"Beryl?"

"Yeah?"

"For what it's worth—if I was going to fall in love with anyone, you'd be a really good choice."

Her smile was like the sun breaking through clouds. "Noted."

---

The rest of the morning passed in a haze of distraction and second-guessing. I sat at my desk, ostensibly working on the Nexus proposal, but my mind kept drifting to the conversation in the conference room. To Beryl, sitting three desks away, acting like everything was normal when nothing was normal at all.

To the question I couldn't stop asking myself: what do I actually want?

Kiyan was the obvious choice in some ways. He was handsome, successful, and apparently had been harboring genuine feelings for me this whole time. The romantic narrative was right there, gift-wrapped and ready: high school sweethearts torn apart by circumstances, reuniting years later to finally get their happy ending.

But it wasn't that simple. Nothing about Kiyan was simple. He'd hurt me in ways that still echoed, still shaped the person I was today. Could I really trust him again, even if he had changed? Could I let myself be vulnerable with someone who had already proven how easily he could destroy me?

And then there was Beryl.

Beryl, who had never hurt me. Who had been there through everything, steady and unwavering. Who had loved me in silence for seven years, never asking for anything in return.

I'd never thought about her romantically—that was true. But I'd also never thought about why I hadn't. Was it because the feelings genuinely weren't there? Or was it because I'd been so focused on Kiyan, so obsessed with the dramatic, painful kind of love, that I'd missed the quiet, constant love right in front of me?

I didn't have answers. Just more questions, spiraling endlessly like water down a drain.

"You're staring at your screen like it personally offended you."

I looked up to find Marcus hovering at the edge of my desk, holding a stack of papers and looking concerned.

"Sorry, what?"

"The Nexus brief? Priya needs it by noon."

"Right. Yes. The brief." I glanced at my monitor, where exactly zero progress had been made on said brief. "I'm almost done."

"You haven't typed anything in twenty minutes."

"It's a very intensive mental drafting process."

He raised an eyebrow but didn't push. "If you need help, just let me know. I'm supposed to be doing research for the social media strategy anyway."

"Thanks, Marcus. I'll let you know."

He wandered off, and I forced myself to focus. Compartmentalization. That was the key. Put all the confusing romantic entanglements in a box, shove the box in a corner, and deal with it later. Preferably after I'd had more than four hours of sleep and at least three more cups of coffee.

I managed to produce something resembling a coherent brief by 11:45, sending it off to Priya with fifteen minutes to spare. Small victories.

My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

**Unknown:** *lunch? there's a thai place around the corner. -K*

My heart did that annoying thing again, the one where it sped up without my permission. K. Kiyan. He'd gotten my number somehow—probably from the work directory, which was technically a misuse of company resources but also exactly the kind of thing he would do.

I should say no. I should maintain professional boundaries. I should—

**Me:** *fine. 12:30.*

So much for should.

I glanced over at Beryl's desk. She was on the phone, nodding along to whoever was on the other end, her expression neutrally professional. She didn't see me looking.

Which was good, because I wasn't sure what she'd see on my face if she did.

---

The Thai place was tiny and crowded, filled with the lunch rush of office workers seeking refuge from their desks. Kiyan was already there when I arrived, seated at a table barely big enough for two, looking entirely too comfortable for someone meeting his high school victim for pad thai.

"You came," he said, standing as I approached.

"Stop acting surprised every time I show up somewhere. It's weird."

"Can't help it. I keep expecting you to come to your senses and tell me to go to hell."

"The day is young."

I sat down across from him, putting my bag on the floor and picking up the laminated menu without really reading it. The restaurant was loud enough to provide cover for conversation but not so loud that we'd have to shout. Perfect for potentially awkward lunch meetings with complicated romantic histories.

"I've been thinking about what you said," Kiyan started. "About proving I've changed."

"And?"

"I realized I was going about it wrong. Telling you I've changed doesn't mean anything. Words are cheap—I proved that pretty thoroughly in high school." He leaned forward, his expression earnest. "So instead of telling you, I'm going to show you. Through my actions. In our professional interactions. In how I treat you and everyone around me."

"Very mature of you."

"I'm trying. I know I have a lot to make up for." He paused as the waiter approached. We ordered—pad thai for me, green curry for him—and the waiter disappeared into the chaos of the kitchen.

"Can I ask you something?" Kiyan said once we were alone again.

"You keep asking if you can ask things. Just ask."

"Your friend. Beryl. You two seem close."

Every muscle in my body tensed. "We are close. We've been friends since we were seven."

"Just friends?"

The question hung in the air between us, loaded with implications I wasn't ready to address. I thought about Beryl's confession, about the tears on her cheeks, about the seven years of silence and sacrifice.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because she looks at you like..." He trailed off, seeming to consider his words. "Like you're the only person in the room. Like everything else is just background noise."

"She's my best friend."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only answer you're getting."

He held up his hands in surrender. "Fair enough. I didn't mean to pry. I just noticed something, and I wondered."

"Well, stop wondering. It's not your business."

The food arrived, providing a convenient excuse to stop talking. I focused on my pad thai with unnecessary intensity, twirling noodles around my fork and trying not to think about the fact that Kiyan—of all people—had noticed what I'd missed for fifteen years.

Was it really that obvious? Had everyone seen the way Beryl looked at me except me?

"I'm sorry," Kiyan said after a few minutes of silent eating. "I overstepped."

"You did."

"It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't."

More silence, more aggressive noodle consumption. Then:

"For what it's worth," Kiyan said quietly, "if there is something there... you could do a lot worse. She seems like a genuinely good person."

I looked up, surprised. "You're advocating for my best friend?"

"I'm advocating for your happiness. Whatever form that takes." He met my eyes, and there was something in his gaze that looked almost like acceptance. "I know I hurt you. I know I don't have any right to want things from you anymore. But I still want you to be happy. Even if it's not with me."

I didn't know what to say to that. It was possibly the most mature thing Kiyan had ever said in his life.

"Who are you?" I asked. "Because you're definitely not the Kiyan I remember."

"I told you. I've changed." He smiled, a little sadly. "It took a lot of therapy and a lot of mistakes, but I finally learned that other people's happiness doesn't diminish my own. That I can want good things for someone without expecting anything in return."

"That's... actually very healthy."

"My therapist would be so proud."

We both laughed, and something in the atmosphere shifted. The tension that had been coiling between us since yesterday started to ease. Not completely—there was still too much history for that—but enough that I could breathe a little easier.

"Okay," I said, setting down my fork. "Here's what I'm willing to offer. A clean slate. Not forgiveness—not yet—but a chance to start over. As colleagues. Maybe, eventually, as friends."

"What about more than friends?"

"Don't push your luck."

He grinned, and for a second, I saw the boy he'd been—charming and hopeful and entirely too confident for his own good. "I had to ask."

"And now you have your answer."

"Fair enough." He raised his water glass. "To clean slates."

I clinked my glass against his. "To clean slates. And to you not being a complete disappointment this time around."

"I'll do my best."

We finished our lunch with easier conversation—work gossip, updates on mutual acquaintances from high school, the kind of small talk that was comfortable precisely because it meant nothing. By the time we walked back to the office, I felt something I hadn't expected to feel in Kiyan's presence: calm.

It was weird. But not unwelcome.

---

Beryl was waiting at my desk when I returned.

"Where were you?"

"Lunch. There's a Thai place around the corner."

"With Kiyan." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, with Kiyan." I dropped my bag and sat down. "It wasn't a date. It was... I don't know what it was. A cease-fire negotiation, maybe."

Her expression was carefully neutral, but I could see the hurt lurking underneath. After everything she'd confessed this morning, me running off to lunch with the guy who'd destroyed me in high school probably looked pretty damning.

"Can we talk?" I asked. "Privately?"

She hesitated, then nodded.

We found an empty meeting room—not the small conference room from this morning, a different one—and closed the door behind us. The click of the latch felt significant, like we were sealing ourselves in with whatever was about to happen.

"Before you say anything," I started, "I need you to know that lunch with Kiyan wasn't about... romance. Or second chances. Or anything like that."

"What was it about?"

"Closure, I think. Or at least the beginning of it." I sat on the edge of the table, facing her. "He apologized again. Said he wants to prove he's changed through actions, not words. And I told him I'd give him a chance to do that. As colleagues. Nothing more."

"And you believed him?"

"I believe he wants to try. Whether he'll actually succeed is another question entirely."

Beryl was quiet for a moment, processing. Then she crossed the room and sat beside me on the table, close enough that our shoulders brushed.

"I'm sorry I reacted badly," she said. "This morning, when I told you... I put you in an impossible position. You're dealing with Kiyan suddenly being back in your life, and then I piled my feelings on top of it. That wasn't fair."

"It's okay."

"It's not. But thank you for saying that anyway." She turned to look at me, her expression soft. "I meant what I said before. I can wait. As long as you need."

"What if I never figure out what I feel?"

"Then I'll still be your best friend. That's not conditional on anything."

"Beryl..."

"I love you, Asenath. Not just romantically—although yes, also that—but as a person. As my favorite person in the entire world. Whatever happens between us, whatever you decide, that's never going to change."

I felt tears prick at my eyes and blinked them back. "Why are you so good? It's annoying."

She laughed, nudging my shoulder with hers. "Years of practice. Plus I'm trying to make you like me."

"I already like you, idiot."

"I know. But I'm aiming higher than like."

The words settled over me like a warm blanket. Beryl was here, solid and real and offering me something I'd been too blind to see. Kiyan was here too, complicated and changed and maybe—possibly—worth a second look.

And I was here, caught between two people who wanted me in different ways, both of them making me feel things I didn't fully understand.

"This is so confusing," I said.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. It's not your fault that I'm emotionally stunted."

"You're not emotionally stunted. You're just... careful. And given what happened to you, that makes complete sense."

I leaned my head against her shoulder without thinking about it. Her arm came up to wrap around me, pulling me closer. We sat like that for a while, neither of us speaking, just existing in the same space.

"Beryl?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't know what's going to happen. With any of this. But I want you to know—you're not just an option. You're not Plan B or a safety net or a backup if Kiyan doesn't work out." I lifted my head to look at her. "You're you. And that matters. More than I ever let myself realize."

Her eyes were shining. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

"Don't get used to it. I have a reputation for sarcasm to maintain."

She laughed, wiping at her eyes. "Noted."

We stayed there for a few more minutes, leaning against each other, before reality came knocking in the form of my phone buzzing with a reminder about a meeting.

"Back to the real world," I sighed.

"Unfortunately."

We stood, straightening clothes and wiping away any evidence of vulnerability. At the door, Beryl paused.

"Asenath?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For listening. For not freaking out. For being... you."

I smiled. "Always."

We walked back to our desks together, side by side, and I couldn't help but think that whatever happened next—whoever I ended up choosing—I was lucky to have people in my life who cared about me this much.

Even if figuring out what to do with that caring was going to be the hardest thing I'd ever done.

---

**End of Chapter 2**

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