Filed to story: Penny and Navy Brother Asher
I’m not.
I sit on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under my weight, and drag a hand through my hair, staring at the floor.
I didn’t want to come back.
If it had been up to me, I’d still be out there-working, fighting, doing something that made sense, something that mattered, something where the rules were clear and survival was simple.
But it wasn’t up to me.
It never really is.
My superior had ordered it-a mandatory leave, signed and stamped and delivered with a look that said you don’t her choice, Hayes,
And so here I am.
Sitting in a house that isn’t wine, wearing a skin that doesn’t quite fit, trying to pretend like the walls aren’t closing in
I lean back, one arm folded behind my head, and stare up at the ceiling, the dark shadows of the fan blades slicing slow circles above me,
And against my will, my mind drifts back to her.
Penny.
That’s what they called her.
Penny with the too-bright smile and the soft blonde hair twisted into a tight bun, strands falling loose around her ears.
Penny with the tiny body wrapped in thin pink fabric and fragile stockings that showed the faint outlines of bruises against her ankles if you looked closely enough.
Penny who looked like she didn’t belong in this world at all,
Like she’d been plucked from some storybook where bad things didn’t happen to good girls.
I hate girls like her.
Entitled.
Delicate.
Sheltered from everything real, everything brutal, everything that makes the world spin the way it does.
The kind of girl who’s never had to worry about cold nights and cruel hands and the way your stomach knots when you turn a corner and realize you’re not alone.
The kind of girl who doesn’t understand that safety is a myth.
That there’s no such thing as walking home alone and being untouchable.
And still-
Still ng to smile through the
The image of her standing in the doorway, clutching her cardigan tighter around her narrow shoulders, trying awkwardness, won’t leave me.
Neither does the memory of Tyler.
Grinning. Laughing, Shrugging off the responsibility like it mer nothing.
Leaving her here without a second thought.
Without a text.
Without a a warning
I roll onto my side, pressing my fist a d against the maitress, squeezing until my knuckles pop.
It’s not about her.
It’s about him.
It’s about the carelessness, the arrogance, the assumption that everything would work out because it always does.
Because when you’ve never seen it go wrong-
You think it never will..
I stare at the wall, jaw tight, breathing slow and even.
I shouldn’t care. don’t care.
It’s not my problem if Tyler’s an idiot.
It’s not my business if some spoiled little princess has to walk home in the dark.
I’m here to sleep, to recover, to serve out my damn mandatory leave without losing my mind.
I’m not here to rescue anyone.
Especially not her.
Especially not someone like her.
Especially not someone who looks at the world like it’s soft and safe and waiting to catch her if she falls.
I close my eyes.
She’s not my problem.
And I’ll make damn sure she never becomes one. brother
The weekend couldn’t come fast enough.
It’s not even noon yet and already, I’m stretched ton thin, my nerves wired too tight, my brain buzzing in a dozen different directions that all feel equally impossible to catch
The week had been… interesting.
Tiring, more than anything.
I gave Tyler the cold shoulder for most of it-not because I wanted to punish him, exactly, but because every time I thought about the way he’d disappeared at dinner, the way he’d left me standing awkward and alone in a house full of strangers, it stirred up something inside me that didn’t feel small enough to ignore.
I didn’t yell.
I didn’t start a fight.
I just… stopped answering as quickly.
Stopped smiling as easily.
And them, because life has a truly dark sense of humor, I saw the pictures.
Tyler at some house party, arm slung around Zoe’s chair, laughing too loud, tossing ping pong balls into plastic cups while half the girls in the photo leaned in closer than necessary.
It wasn’t the beer pong that got me.
It wasn’t even Zoe’s sharp little smile, curled like a secret.
It was the fact that he looked so at ease.
Like nothing about the night felt wrong.
I’d stared at at the pictures too long, long enough that the image burned behind my eyelids even when I closed them, and for a few days after that, Tyler didn’t push. ive me space.
He gave
Apologized. Texted things like I’m an idiot and I miss you and let me make it up to you in the kind of rapid-fire succession that only made me more tired.
Or close enough.
It’s not like I can afford to waste more headspace on it.
Tomorrow is the Gala audation.
The biggest shot I’ve ever had.
The thing I’ve been grinding toward for the past year.
And I need my head clear.
I should be thinking about placement and breathing and flmr, try I should be visualizing my routine until it clicks into place without me having to
Instead, I spent the better part of this morning sitting cross-legged on my bed, my laptop balanced on my knees, typing Asher Hayes into every search bar could find like an idiot.
Nothing.
No Facebook. No Instagram. No smiling military headshots.
The only thing that came up was a blany local news clip from three years ago about a group of new Navy recruits, the names listed in a tiny scrolling credit at the bottom of the screen.
I should stop thinking about him.