going back home

Donna was still half-asleep when Tom eased himself out from beneath her. She murmured softly, rolling to the warm dent his body left in the mattress, lips parted in a dreamy smile. He paused at the door just long enough to watch her, her hair spread across the pillow, her hand searching unconsciously for him.

It should have stirred something gentler in him. Instead, it only made the ache in his chest heavier.

He slipped down the stairs and back into the night. The air was cool, heavy with dew and the muffled echoes of laughter from the party still rattling the walls behind him. Tom’s sneakers crunched across the driveway gravel until he found his car, sat for a moment gripping the wheel hard enough to whiten his knuckles.

The drive home was a blur of headlights and red lights he barely registered. His pulse was climbing again, the same frustration chewing at him, stronger for the hollow way Donna’s touch had left him. His body was satisfied, but his mind—his heart—were worse than before.

The house was dark when he pulled into the driveway. Tom turned the key slowly, careful not to wake his parents. The clock on the microwave blinked 2:13 AM in dim green numbers when he eased the door shut behind him.

The air smelled faintly of wine and Sarah’s perfume—soft traces lingering like ghosts in the dark. His chest tightened as he toed his sneakers off, padding quietly across the kitchen tile.

Upstairs, the house had that deep, heavy silence that only came when everyone was asleep. He paused at the foot of the stairwell, listening. Nothing but the faint hum of the air conditioner.

Tom climbed, every step a deliberate shift of weight to keep the floorboards from groaning. When he reached the hallway, he glanced down toward the closed bedroom door. The faint line of light was gone now. The house was black and still.

They were asleep.

Somewhere behind that door, Sarah’s hair was spilling across her pillow, Robert’s arm thrown over her waist. The thought landed like a stone in Tom’s stomach. His jaw clenched as he lingered, imagining what must’ve happened hours before, what he had missed while he was with Donna.

He slipped past the door and into his own room. The familiar mess of clothes, the faint smell of sweat and cologne, the glow of the alarm clock—it grounded him. But lying back in bed, staring up at the ceiling, he couldn’t shut off his head.

Every flicker of memory from Donna blurred into the outline of Sarah instead: the way Sarah’s skin had gleamed in the bathroom light, the tug of her towel slipping down, the low laugh he could almost hear when she tilted her head back at Robert’s jokes.

Tom pressed his palms into his eyes, gritting his teeth. He’d spent himself with Donna, but it hadn’t drained him—just sharpened the hollow edge inside.

When he finally let his hands drop, he could see the faint shape of Sarah’s door through the crack of his own. Silent. Closed. Guarding the world he wanted most but couldn’t touch.

His fingers curled around the coin on his nightstand, rolling it over and over, feeling the hum of its weight. He could change everything with a single wish. But not tonight. Not yet.

Sleep came fitful, thick with images of her.