✽ Jason ✽
I didn’t like the idea of Saturday. It sat in my mind like a fixed point, a date and a time that didn’t belong to her. Mandy had said it lightly, as if it was harmless, as if a plan was just a plan. David treated it like ownership. He asked for her time, her attention, and her smile, and he received them. For days, I thought about the way he looked at her in the diner, the way he leaned in, the way he watched her mouth. He acted like he was entitled to closeness. Men like that mistook access for permission. They didn’t stop when they should have.
They didn’t know she belonged to me.
I walked with Mandy to work and home as we had agreed, and she spoke about ordinary things as if her life was normal. She told me about dough and butter and instructors who screamed over burnt suga
