The night was too quiet for her own good. The kind of quiet that pressed against her ribs and made her feel like she could hear her own heartbeat — too slow, too lonely, too loud.

She hadn’t planned to drink tonight. No party invitations. No girls’ night out. No club lights or music to drown out her thoughts. Just her, a half-empty bottle of whiskey, and the city breathing softly outside her apartment window.

Her phone sat face down on the coffee table, but it might as well have been a magnet. Every time she looked away, she felt its pull.

Don’t do it, she told herself. Don’t call him.

But the whiskey didn’t care about good decisions. It didn’t care about all the nights she’d promised herself she was over him — over Jason Todd and his smirk, his leather jacket, his tendency to walk into her life like a storm and leave her in the wreckage.

She picked up the phone anyway. Scrolled through her contacts until his name appeared. Jason.

Her thumb hovered over his name. One drink too deep. One heartbeat too late. She pressed call.

The ring tone filled the room — steady, cold, unforgiving.