Savior Complex: A Small Town Love Triangle Romance

“Goodnight Brayden,” I say, taking a step toward my stairs. He leans forward and takes my hand again, lifting it to his lips. Holy fuck, why don’t guys do this anymore? The way his eyes never leave mine as his mouth presses to my fingers has me quivering inside.

“Goodnight, Nina,” he says, then releases me.

Chapter Three

Nina

Inside my house, I lean against the door for a moment, trying to figure out what just happened and why my heart is beating so fast. Then I hear my phone ping in the kitchen.

My phone! I run, tripping over a pile of clothes on the way, then skid across the linoleum I haven’t mopped in weeks. There are dishes piled everywhere and open cabinets without a clean dish in them. And there, in the middle of the mess, is my phone.

I unlock it, then click on the text—two of them now—and get to reading.

Brayden: Roses are red, violets are blue, your smile is sweet, and your hair is blue too. I’m not much of a poet, but I do believe in fate, and in beauty and chemistry and all you radiate. See, I’m not much with rhymes or telling you how I feel, but give me a chance to make my appeal—to stay in your life, even as a friend. Because Nina, sweet beauty, I’d hate to see this end.

I smile at his text, then read the one right under it.

Brayden: Please delete that text. Tell me you didn’t read it.

I laugh out loud, then text him back.

Nina: Oh, I read it, Tolstoy. And I’m framing this bad boy on my wall in giant font.

He doesn’t respond right away, probably because he’s still making his way back to wherever he came from before he saved me. But it’s fine, because I have work to do.

I race to the bookcase in the living room and kneel to reach the bottom shelf. There, in chronological order, is every single diary I’ve kept since I was ten years old. Seventeen years of them, to be exact. There were so many times I’d been tempted to throw them away, especially the one from ten years ago. Burn them, even, just so I could forget. But something always stopped me. Maybe it was because these were the true witnesses of my life. The only place I’d ever told the complete truth. The only place where the sins committed against my body were detailed in ways I couldn’t even tell my mother. Never even got to tell the police.

I find that journal now and flip it open. It immediately lands on the piece of paper I’d slipped between the pages. My handwriting is rushed, almost like I couldn’t get the words down fast enough—as if I was angry and determined.

Because I was.

It had been a weekend at my grandma’s house with my cousin, Jordy. She lived out of town, so these rare moments when we could hang out together were very special. It was also full of rituals. The homemade pancakes Nanna Dot placed before us, complete with “magic” syrup. The singing performances for an audience of one, even at seventeen. The late nights talking about fashion, trading gossip about our friends, and swapping stories about boys. So many boys. And snuggling with Nanna on the couch while watching our favorite movie of all time—Practical Magic.

But this weekend was different. It was weeks after the incident. Weeks after my mom advised me to keep things to myself.

“You don’t want to embarrass yourself, honey,” she’d said. I knew what that meant. She didn’t want me to embarrass her. But some part of that still stuck to me.

So I remained silent at Nanna’s house, even when she and Jordy both noticed.

“Sing with me,” Jordy begged, handing the karaoke mic to me. I watched the words on the TV roll on by, but my voice wouldn’t work.

So there was no singing that weekend. No makeup tutorials or clothing swaps. And definitely no talk about boys.

But there were pancakes, and there was Practical Magic. And as we watched the Owens sisters change their cursed witchy fate, I took comfort in the fluffy goodness smothered in spells and syrup.

“I’m manifesting my perfect man,” Jordy exclaimed after the movie, leaping up to grab some paper and pens from the kitchen. She gave one to Nanna Dot, who laughed and said she’d settle for someone to rub her feet every night, and that’s all.

“Nanna, I’ll rub your feet,” I said. “You don’t need a man.”

“Stay right there,” Jordy ordered, thrusting a piece of paper at me. “She needs a man, and so do you.”

“What about the curse? Won’t any man who ends up with us die?” I looked expectantly at Jordy, who only rolled her eyes.

“That’s just in the movie, Nina.” She pointed at my paper, then got busy on her own, not even giving me an opening to remind her that the lists were make-believe too.

Still, it didn’t stop me from playing along, but only to list qualities that were impossible to find in a man, just like Sally Owens.

I was never going to fall in love.