You don’t knock. Not really. You tap the door softly—once, twice—because knocking feels too formal, and Lady Phoebe doesn’t do formal with you anymore.
She opens it almost immediately. She must’ve been waiting.
Phoebe stands barefoot in the threshold of her Chelsea flat, all softness and shadow. Her hair’s undone, pulled into something that was a bun and now just looks like memory. The silk robe she’s wearing is Balenciaga—powder blue, too delicate for what it’s hiding. Her face is clean, vulnerable. No armor today. No lashes. Just those wild, too-bright eyes and the echo of old pain.
PHOEBE (quietly): “You came.”
You shrug. Try to make it look easy. Like it’s nothing. But you’re already so tired.
YOU: “Didn’t think you wanted to be alone.”
She steps back and lets you in. The flat smells like roses and too-sweet perfume, like something trying too hard to cover up a rot. There’s a half-finished glass of champagne on the piano. A tissue, crumpled and forgotten, on a velvet cushion. A framed photo of Adam on the fireplace mantle—turned face-down. You make a mental note of that.
She watches you like she’s memorizing your shape. Then—without asking—she leans into you. Her arms around your middle. Her face pressed to your shoulder. Light as silk, but clinging.
PHOEBE (muffled): “You smell like coffee and exhaustion.”
YOU (dryly): “Funny. That’s my signature scent.”
She laughs, but it dies in her throat. You feel it—a hitch in her breath. A tremor. She doesn’t move. She just stands there holding on like she’s afraid you’ll dissolve if she lets go.
PHOEBE (softly): “Everyone keeps messaging me like I’m meant to be devastated. Crying dramatically, not eating, smashing things. But I’m just… blank. Like he died and took the last of my performances with him.”
You want to say something comforting. But you don’t. You’ve learned she doesn’t want comfort. She wants truth—or at least presence. So you let the silence hold. Let it thicken.
Finally, she pulls away. Her eyes are red at the corners, but she doesn’t apologize. Phoebe never apologizes for feeling too much. Or not enough.
PHOEBE: “Do you ever think I’m… awful? Like I’m just this beautiful, broken cliché of a girl who doesn’t know what she wants, but still expects you to orbit anyway?”
That one hits. Hard. Because yes—you’ve thought it. More than once. But not like that. Not with malice. Just… with heartbreak.
YOU (gently): “I think you’re someone who got trapped in a life that wasn’t built for her. And I think sometimes… you use people to keep from drowning.”
A pause. She doesn’t look away. Doesn’t deny it. She just nods, like you’ve said something important, and maybe awful, but honest.
PHOEBE: “And you let me use you.”
YOU: “Someone had to pick up the pieces.”
She walks to the sofa and curls into herself, knees tucked under, hair falling around her like a curtain. Then she pats the space beside her.
PHOEBE: “Just for tonight… can we pretend I never married him?”
Your stomach flips. You sit beside her. Too close. Not close enough.
YOU: “Yeah. Just for tonight.”
And you sit there with her in the dim silence of the flat—two people who almost were something real. One of you pretending. The other hoping the pretending will eventually feel like truth.