Chapter 9 Labels and what not

After that night, the one where I finally told him everything, I thought things might have shifted. Not dramatically, not in fireworks and flowers, but... something. I felt free. He knew me now. Really knew me. And part of me expected that to mean something. But days passed. Then a week. Then months.We texted. We met up a lot and had hot steamy sex. Dates, gifts, lots of gifts, long drives, afternoons where the air between us hummed with something unspoken. But he never asked. Not to be official, not even, "What are we doing?" Just...

this gentle, constant almost like a relationship vibe but without a label. He'd brush a strand of hair from my face, say things like "You make it easy to be around you," or "I miss this." When he'd return from a short trip. But "this" never had a name. And I hated that it mattered to me.

I told myself I was fine, that I didn't want a label, that I wasn't the kind of woman who needed one. But the truth was, I did. I just didn't know how to ask what we were doing without sounding desperate. One night, I was cooking for a small dinner party. A group of content creators were having a party. The kitchen smelled like roasted garlic and lemon. My playlist was soft jazz, the kind that usually steadied me. But all I could think about was how quiet my phone was.When it finally buzzed, my heart jumped. It wasn't him. It was Cherry.

CHERRY: "Still seeing your mystery man?"

ME: "Kind of."

CHERRY: "What's kind of?"

ME: "We hang out."

CHERRY: "He's sleeping with you freely and not calling it anything, huh?"

ME: "It's not like that, he already told me he can't do casual with me, so baby steps."

CHERRY: "We need to talk, come by my house in the morning."

ME: "why? What's going on?"

CHERRY: "we'll talk when you get here, xoxo."

Cherry's apartment always smelled faintly of sandalwood and something expensive she never named. The lights were low, her curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, soft jazz drifting from a speaker tucked somewhere near her vanity. I hadn't been here in weeks. The last time, we'd drunk cheap prosecco on her balcony and talked about men like they were another language we were both trying to unlearn. Now, sitting on her velvet couch with a glass of wine I hadn't asked for, I could tell something was off. She looked... careful. Like someone rehearsing what not to say.

"What's wrong?" I asked her, I was beginning to get worried.

Cherry exhaled, took a sip, then set her glass down with both hands.

"Okay," she said slowly. "I wasn't going to tell you this, but I think it's important you hear it."

Immediately, my stomach tightened, my pulse racing. She looked at me, really looked, like she was measuring how much truth I could handle.

"I saw him," she said quietly.

"Him?" I asked, even though I knew.

She nodded. "Two nights ago. Robin called last-minute to accompany him to a dinner party with some art crowd in the West Loop."

I tried not to guess where the conversation was going.

She spoke again a minute later. "He was there."

I gave her an arritated look. "Who the fuck is he."

She huffed and threw her hands in the air before saying, "Crest" in a whisper, like someone was listening.

In as much as Crest and I have a thing going on, I haven't made it my life's mission to keep tabs on his movement, social life, business or what he does with his time. So I gave Cherry a look that said "so?" She picked up her glass again and said.

"Well, he wasn't alone, he came with an arm candy, and they looked pretty cozy together."

I stayed quiet, she continued, reaching out to touch my knee.

"I didn't want to tell you, because I wasn't sure what the nature of your relationship with him was, regardless I thought you should know."

Cherry stopped talking, waiting for me to say something. The room suddenly felt smaller. The hum of the city outside the window, the faint jazz, everything pressed in on me at once. I nodded. Staring at the half empty glass in my hand.

"Thanks." I said, but my voice came out thinner than I meant it to.

"You okay?"

"I don't know." I said.

She poured more wine, though neither of us drank.

"I mean, maybe it's not what it looked like," Cherry said after a while, her tone gentle, almost apologetic. "You said he's divorced, right? Maybe she's just...I don't know, maybe you should talk to him, hear what he says."

"Well, wasn't like we ever discussed the dynamics of our relationship, he just said he wanted me and didn't it to be casual. I never asked him what that meant."

Cherry looked and me and said. "I think it's probably time you both discussed that. I would hate to see you get hurt."

What she didn't know was that I was already hurting so much like I was bruised from the inside. I maintained a clam exterior and told her I needed to run some errands and left.

Two days passed before I brought myself to take his calls. I tried to force myself into making excuses for him. But the truth was, he might not have made things official between us, but he very much acted and treated me like we were an item already. When his name lit up on my phone, I stared at the screen until it almost went dark. Then I picked up.

"Hey," he said. His voice was calm, familiar, like nothing had happened.

"Hey."

There was a pause, soft but loaded.

"I figured you heard."

I swallowed. "Cherry saw you."

He sighed. "Yeah. I thought that might get back to you."

"Is there something you want to say to me?" I asked, keeping my tone even.

"Come on, It wasn't what it looked it." He said quietly.

I almost laughed at how cliché that sounded.

"That's what people always say before it's exactly what it looked like."

He hesitated. "She's not... it's not like that. She's... a companion. One of Robin's girls. I didn't even plan to see her and nothing happened between us."

I blinked. "A companion?"

He exhaled. "An escort. It wasn't the kind of place you'd want to be."

There was a long silence. I could hear him breathing, steady and low, the way he always did when he was trying not to say the wrong thing.

"The least you could do right now, is respect me enough not to gaslight and manipulate me."

He was about to speak when I hung up. The silence that followed was almost physical, pressing against my ribs, heavy and hollow. I stood there, in the middle of my sitting room for a long time, phone still in hand, staring at nothing.