The peace didn't last.
It never does, not when you've built your life on unfinished business.
Mira's phone buzzed just past midnight. A number she hadn't seen in almost a year.
Unknown Caller.
She stared at it until it stopped.
No voicemail. No message. Just silence, like a warning wrapped in curiosity.
Jace stirred beside her, his hand finding her waist in the dark. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah," she lied. "Just spam."
But her heart was thudding like a fist on a locked door.
---
By morning, the call was still clawing at her brain. She couldn't pretend it was nothing. Only a handful of people had that number. And she knew—knew—it had to be Eli.
The name alone was enough to make her stomach twist.
Eli, the almost. The mistake. The reason she stopped believing in safe love. He had a temper hidden behind charm and control dressed as devotion. And when she left, she made it clean—new city, new number, no goodbye.
She should've known ghosts don't stay buried.
---
Jace noticed immediately.
"You're quiet again."
"I'm always quiet," she deflected.
"Not like this."
She chewed her thumbnail, a nervous habit she thought she'd kicked. "Remember when I said I left things behind?"
He nodded slowly.
"One of them might've found me."
Jace's eyes darkened. "Someone hurt you?"
"Not physically. But emotionally? Yeah."
He waited, didn't push.
"His name's Eli. We were together a year. The kind of guy who always knows the right thing to say. Until he wants to break you."
Jace's jaw flexed. "Did he?"
"No," she said. "But he tried."
---
That night, she sat on the fire escape outside her apartment, knees pulled to her chest, the city humming beneath her. Jace joined her, two beers in hand.
"I don't want him back in my head," she whispered.
"Then don't let him."
"It's not that easy."
"I know."
They sat in silence again, but this time it felt necessary.
"What would you do," she asked eventually, "if your past knocked on your door and asked for another chance?"
"I'd ask it why it waited until I had something better," he said.
She turned to him. "And what if it didn't care?"
"I'd slam the door."
Mira smiled faintly. "I'm not used to people choosing me."
"Get used to it."
---
Inside, she blocked the number.
Then slid her phone under her pillow and curled into Jace's side.
She didn't know what would happen next.
But she knew who she wanted beside her when the next twist came.