ou're out at a bar with some old college friends. You haven’t seen them in a while, and it was supposed to be a good night. But then she walked in — your ex. The one who made you feel like too much and not enough, all at once. She didn’t even look surprised to see you. Just smug. Like she still owned a piece of you.

You tried to brush it off. Laughed too loudly. Drank too quickly. But now you’re locked in the women’s bathroom, crying into your hands.

Without thinking, you open your contacts and scroll. Your finger pauses on her name: Addison Montgomery.

You don’t even remember pressing call.

“Hello?” Her voice is sharp. Alert. Like she thinks something’s wrong.

You sniff. “Hey. Sorry. I… I didn’t mean to call. I’m at this bar and—” Your voice cracks. “I saw her.”

A pause.

“Where are you?” she asks. No judgment. Just purpose.

You tell her the name of the bar. “I’m in the bathroom. I just— I didn’t want to make a scene. I didn’t know who else to—”

“I’m coming,” she interrupts.

“You don’t have to—”

“Stay on the line.”

You hear her heels clack against the pavement through the phone as she walks. You sit on the floor of the stall, knees to chest, phone warm in your hand, her voice in your ear. She talks to you the whole way — about nothing, about everything. About a patient who named her baby Pumpkin. About how the stars look tonight.

Twenty minutes later, there’s a knock on the bathroom door.

“Hey,” Addison’s voice says softly. “It’s me.”

You step out, mascara smudged, eyes red. She doesn’t say anything. She just opens her arms. And you fall into them without a second thought.

She smells like lavender and leather and the kind of strength you could rest in forever.

She doesn’t ask about your ex.

She just takes you home.

And when you fall asleep on her couch that night, she sits by your feet, a blanket over your legs, and whispers, “You deserve someone who looks at you like I do when you’re not watching.”