With small lies.
Soft ones.
The kind that don’t push you away all at once — just keep you from ever moving closer again.
I walk back to the street alone, hailing another cab, already pulling farther away than she realizes.
CHAPTER 27
BETH
Sage surprised me.
After the summer we’d survived—screaming fights, desperate makeups, emotional whiplash—I was braced for impact.
Sage could go from incandescent to ice in a single breath, and I was sure she’d fight to get Ethan back with everything she had.
Phone calls.
Ambush lunches.
Fishing expeditions for information about Ethan.
Instead?
Nothing.
We still met for lunch once or twice a week, but the questions never came. No casualHave you talked to him lately?No carefully disguisedHow’s he doing?
Because I had nothing to give her.
And she knew it.
Which, weirdly, told me more about our friendship than the whole summer had.
If she’d only been using me, she would’ve kept pressing.
But she didn’t.
We talked about work.
About how the office felt like a mausoleum now.
About how nobody laughed anymore.
And about this… heaviness.
Like the air itself had weight.
Fall had come hard and fast that year. Cold mornings. Shorter days. Everyone walking around like they were waiting for the next shoe to drop, even though no one could say what the shoe was.
Just… waiting.
One Tuesday at lunch, I finally said it.
“It’s Halloween this weekend.”
She looked up from her salad. “Is that a question or a statement?”
