Watching her fall apart is one of the worst things I've had to witness in my life.

We stay there for over an hour. Mia fluctuates through her highs and lows, her tears and her breathing. I hum her a tune that my mom used to sing to me as a child and rock us gently, the only consolation I can think to provide. Times like these are tough for me. I know there's nothing I can say to make things right, but all I want to do is reach my hand into the threads of the universe and rearrange them to prevent her from enduring this.

But whatever this is eludes me. It feels like a breakdown more than a reaction to a single event. I can't bring myself to believe she's this heartbroken over this guy - especially if we were making out not even a couple days ago.

Maybe it's a terrible conclusion, but it's the one I've arrived at.

She starts to reel in her breathing with big, gasping breaths. I drag my fingers down her arms, elbows to fingernails, then back up, then back down. On and on, a rhythm meant to soothe her. She's warm in my grasp, but exceedingly fragile. I can feel her vibrating like a tiny dog.

It's hard to reconcile this version of her with the towering, powerful Mia I'm used to. It's hard, generally, to know she's hurting like this and I'm the idiot standing on the outskirts of her pain begging to be let in.

When she's ready, she croaks, "I need water."

"To restock your tears," I reply. When she stays in my lap, I whisper, "I'll grab that for you unless you want to do it yourself."

Her hair, clean and perfectly curled, tickles my lips. I brush it down with one hand and resist the urge to kiss her temple.

"Can you get it?"

I remove myself from her slowly, like she might bleed out if I jump up too fast. I find a glass in the cabinet beside the fridge and make her a cup of iced water with as much love as someone can pour into water. When I give it to her, she takes it with two trembling hands.

I sit back down with her on the floor, this time facing her, running my fingers over her crossed legs. My own legs stretch out on either side of her, boxing us in.

"What do you need from me, Mia bella?" I ask, my voice barely audible.

She laughs bitterly. "There's nothing you can do." She keeps her eyes glued to the floor, avoiding my gaze at all costs. "There's nothing anyone should do. I'll get over this and carry on as usual."

I blink, recalibrate. Am I hearing that right? "What? You can't carry on as usual. You're so miserable you just cried for an hour."

Her inhale is sharp like a hiss. "It was a mistake to let you see that," she says.

"Mia," I breathe. "Don't say that."

"It was."

"No, it wasn't. Who taught you that?"

I see this question take root in her mind, something she probably hasn't considered. This tough façade is a learned response - but from whom and why are not my main concerns. Unlearning it is.

When she doesn't respond, I rub my thumbs over her kneecaps and lean closer. "Don't shut me out, Mi. You've done that to enough people. You don't have to do this alone. If it can't be me, give me someone to call so you have a friend here with you."

The wall she'd been building between us starts to dissolve. "It can be you."

I smile, but she's still staring at the floor. I pull her closer to me by the backs of her knees. "So tell me what's going on with your career. You don't know if you like it?"

Mia shakes her head just barely. "It's just what my dad does."

I stay silent, trying to emulate the same tactics that she and my mother usually employ on me. 

She sighs. "My dad is the CEO of the PR firm I'm employed at."

It takes a lot of restraint not to react to this. I nod instead, hoping it looks like this information is settling like dust on the top of my thoughts, not sweeping through them like a wrecking ball.

"He raised me to be the heir, essentially. I was the golden child until I wasn't. Or, really, until I grew into a woman. It's been constant criticism since adulthood. I worked so hard to prove that I was good enough, that I belonged there with or without him. I've been built up to do this since I was a child that it became my entire identity before I had one. And now it's all I have."

I want to tell her it's not all she has, that I'm right here in front of her, but that's a realization she'll have to come to on her own. I chew on my cheek, gnawing at dead skin until I bleed.

"I've isolated myself doing this," she says, and her voice cracks as she does. My heart breaks with it. "I don't know if I can continue, but I don't know what else I would do."

On her own accord, Mia scoots herself into me, splaying her legs over my hips. We're tangled together, close enough to kiss, to breathe the same air. I move my hands to her hair, smoothing it down her neck. 

"I'm not sure if you know this," I whisper, "but the rest of us don't know what we're doing either."

She laughs, but I can tell she isn't buying it.

"I wasn't going to go to college," I continue. "Couldn't have dreamed of it with the way I bombed my SATs. I had no trades that interested me, no talents or skills that translated into money. I was funny and people liked me, but that isn't something you get paid for. I was just going to work for my mom's bakery - the one she runs from the kitchen I grew up in.

"That was fine, too. There are worse realities. But then I fell into this TikTok thing, and now I'm stuck here. I don't know if I like it either. I'm not sure I could ever go back to being a home baker with my mom. But for you, Mia, literally anything is possible. There is no universe where you are not the most hardworking person I've ever met, no chance of you not having a job that you excel at. You can't fail because you're not the kind of person who accepts failure."

She leans into me, tucking her head into the crook of my neck, and I hope she can't hear the way my heartbeat speeds up.

"Leave the job if it's not fulfilling," I tell her softly. "You don't have to stay in one place because you don't know what the next place will be. You'll land somewhere. Hell, you'll land on your feet, too."

She  sniffled softly and my heart ached for her.

"I'll land with you."

At this, she pulls back, looking into my eyes like she's searching for a thread of dishonesty. I let her look; I relish the eye contact she's been withholding from me since we'd stepped into the apartment. Her lips are parted, her eyes furrowed, her face swollen and tinged rosy pink.

God, I wanted to kiss her.

"Don't say that, Brett," she whispers. "Don't make promises like that."

"Why not?"

"I don't need that support."

I laugh bitterly, taking a deep inhale to cool off the frustration in my stomach. "I'm here, Mia. I'm with you. I'm not leaving. I'll take whatever crumbs you throw at me - if that's at work, or as friends, or if maybe you'll let me in for once."

She nestles back into me, her body a comforting weight on mine. I wrap my arms around her, silently praying that the scent of her will leak in through my pores and stay with me forever.

"I have to ask, then. Out of sheer jealousy."

"Hmm?"

I hold her tighter. "You're not heartbroken about Sean?"

"Not romantically. Only out of envy. From knowing that I couldn't be enough for him.

I open my mouth to say something but she cuts me off immediately.

"No, Brett. I really wasn't good enough for him." She lifts her face until her lips are brushing against my neck. "He was an angel on earth and I was a viper. People like us can't work out. But I'm glad to see that life will treat him right."

I nod, resting my head atop hers. "You didn't tell me he was Deaf."

She laughs at this. "It never came up."

"Can I cook you dinner?"

"Huh?"

She wrenches herself from me, her face contorted into bewilderment. I sweep a stray strand of hair from her eyes and tuck it behind her ear.

"Dinner," I say. "Usually eaten after lunch. Probably between the hours of five and eight PM, most commonly. Some may argue it's the best meal of the day, but they may not have met Breakfast yet."

"Why would you do that?"

In the late afternoon light, her image before me turns watery. I want to scoop it between my palms, to carry it with me. Her beauty transcends anything physical I can describe - it's in the way she breathes so gently, the way she is all long, tanned limbs splayed across me. It's the way she is the fiercest person I've ever met, yet she allowed me to hold her for the last hour while she sobbed. It's the way she looks right now, exhausted from the weight of her emotions, dewy from her tears, still scrambling to hide any vulnerability from me. It's the braid that's slowly come undone, it's her warmth, it's her, it's her, it's her.

Because I love you, I want to tell her. Because I'd rearrange myself to fit beside you in every universe.

"Because it's dinner hours?"

Mia cocks her head to one side, considering this. "I don't have groceries."

"I've been known to work miracles in the kitchen," I say, waving this off. "Among other places."

Finally, finally, she cracks into a smile that rivals the sun and a real, partially disgusted laugh bubbles out of her. "I have my doubts."

"I can prove myself." She cocks an eyebrow at me. "In the kitchen."

Despite it being the last thing I want to do, I untangle myself from her and hold out both hands for her to grab. When she does, I hoist her up with enough force to make her jump. She's trying to swallow a grin, and for her sake, I pretend not to notice it.

"How about you take a shower and I'll find something edible?" I suggest, already rifling through the freezer. It may be bare, but there's a few pounds of frozen shrimp and some peas. I can definitely make do with that.

"Can you be trusted without a babysitter?"

I snort. "Probably not. Knowing me, I'll create some awful internet drama right here by the fridge."

The moment I say it, my heart drops. I'd forgotten about the date with Camila - most specifically, the disastrous way in which it ended. How Mia was roped into that and doesn't even know it.

My fingers itch to check my phone for the eightieth time today, to see if Camila has responded to the series of texts I'd sent to explain myself. I'd even, shamefully, offered to buy her out if she wouldn't sell the story to the media. Besides, it made sense, Mia being in my room, from a work perspective.

It made sense, right?

Mia is watching me as I emerge from my own head, and to my utter shock, she closes the distance between us and plants a firm kiss on my lips.

It's so quick I almost miss it, which, knowing Mia, is most likely by design.

I instinctively pull her in by the small of her back, dipping low to kiss her back, but stop just short of her lips.

The secrets are sitting like concrete on my heart, and I know I can't start something I can't stop. Not when I've created so much shit on the backend that Mia doesn't even know about yet.

"You should shower," I whisper, my voice husky.

"I should."

Neither one of us moves.

"I'll be here when you get out."

Her chocolate eyes flicker up to mine, searching just like they did before. "You promise?"

"I'll always be here, Mia. I promise."