I hadn’t seen my ex in ten years when he showed up at my door looking broken, tired, and completely alone. I almost turned him away, and maybe I should have. But I let him stay for one night, never thinking that by morning, everything in my life would change.
I had not seen Derek in ten years. Not once.
Not even by accident in a grocery store or some random tagged photo online. Not even in one of those weak moments when you type a name into social media at two in the morning just to prove to yourself you are over it.
I was over it. At least that is what I had told myself for years.
When we broke up, it was ugly in the way only young love can be ugly. Loud, cruel, and humiliating. We said things that did not just end the relationship; they scorched the ground around it.
He called me cold, and I called him selfish. He said I always had to be right. I said he would ruin every good thing he touched. By the time he slammed the door, we were both shaking and red-faced and swearing, “Never again.”
I kept my promise.
Then yesterday evening, I stepped onto my front yard after work, still holding my purse and my takeout bag, and there he was.
For one second, I just stared.
He looked older than thirty should look. His hair was thinner, his face harder, and there were deep lines around his mouth that had not been there before. He was standing on my porch with a duffel bag hanging from one shoulder and that same pair of gray eyes I used to know better than my own.
“Claire,” he said.
I did not answer.
He swallowed. “I know I am the last person who should be here.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I have nowhere else to go.”
I could have shut the door. There was a clean ending available to me.
Instead, I stood there, tired from work, stunned by the sight of him, noticing the way his shoulders sagged like someone had cut the strings inside him.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Everything.”
It made me angry. Vague. Dramatic. Very Derek. Still, something in his face stopped me.
“I am not asking you in.”
“Just one night,” he said, voice cracking. “Please.”
I wanted to say no, but I still had a soft spot for him.
So, I moved aside.
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