It had been a long time coming by then, when the man she decided would be her last boyfriend cheated on her, and the worst part was, she couldn’t even feel more than some general indignation. Or maybe the worst part was when he yelled at her that she’d never allowed them to truly have a relationship, and she wasn’t entirely sure he was wrong there.
She would wonder if the last man she’d ever love would be Kevin. At least that would mean the pain was now past.
So perpetual singlehood is was for her. It wasn’t that bad. She had a good job and an okay apartment and some other women she thought of as her friends. Although she never got that close to any of them either, and they often came and went. They got even more distant after her arrest.
Contrary to what the romcoms would imply, this did not change the first time she laid eyes on Matt Murdock. She was under arrest for a murder she hadn’t committed, knowing full well nobody would ever believe her story; she had other things to worry about at the time. She did feel some warmth when he told her he believed her, but even later, she was pretty sure that was strictly gratitude.
The same went for her feelings when he and Foggy Nelson came back the next day and got her out. By the time they left the precinct, Karen had acknowledged two things about herself and them: she liked them both, in the general way, and she thought Matt Murdock was very handsome-she was still perfectly capable of finding men attractive. But that, she was sure, was as far as it would ever go.
Until she found herself alone with a man for the first time since that last breakup, and in his apartment. Of course nothing was going to happen that night; she was pretty sure that would be an ethical violation for him anyway. That certainty made it easier to be free with him, maybe more than she’d been with a man in years and years. Except she did have to tell him one lie, but that one just didn’t feel like it counted, really.
And then he was taking off his glasses, which she instantly recognized as a gesture of trust on his part. And even in the limited light, as he spoke about longing to see the sky one more time, she could see the soft vulnerability he had kept hidden, the sadness he lived with, hear the shakiness in his voice, from all the feelings he was still holding back, but had within him.
It was about then that Karen started to think she might be in trouble.
(She had no idea.)