No missed calls.
Nothing.
I open our texts and scroll through what feels like a lifetime of memories. The easy banter and sweet words that felt so sincere. The crossed-out lists and scribbled hearts on his notebook. The selfies I stared at as I fell asleep.
All of it feels like evidence now, like proof I didn’t imagine this.
That he wanted me too.
But he’s nothere.
My throat closes, and I press the heel of my hand to my sternum, trying to push the pain down, but it only spreads. Tears burn behind my eyes, and I blink them back, furious at myself. They spill over anyway.
An hour and a half.
I’m curled on my side now, knees to my chest, blanket pulled over my head like that will block out the silence. My face is wet and my pillow damp underneath it. I keep replaying the night. The way he kissed me and touched me like he couldn’t get enough. It blurs with the words I glazed over, too ready to move forward to really hear him.
“You’re going to regret this in the morning.”
“It might ruin everything.”
“Will you regret it tomorrow?”
I’d asked him then—countered his question with one of my own. I’d asked him outright if he’d regret this.
He never answered, I realize.
A wave of nausea rolls through my body.
He never answered.
Two hours.
The tears have slowed to a steady leak, and my head throbs. My mouth tastes like copper and vodka andregret. I sit up, wipe my face on my sleeve, and stareat the door again. It hasn’t moved, and the hallway outside is silent.
I grab my phone one more time, searching for an explanation I know isn’t there. My eyes shift out the window and lock on the Stratton Tower sign near the walkway, lit with tiny spotlights I just mulched around a few days ago. I drop the phone onto the mattress and bury my face in my hands as my shoulders shake with fresh sobs. The sky outside the window is starting to lighten. Gray bleeds into pale pink at the edges as dawn rears its head.
I don’t sleep.
Don’t move.
Just sit here, waiting,breakinga little more with every minute that passes without him.
The sun rises, mercilessly painting the room in soft gold. My eyes are swollen, my throat raw, and my chest hollowed out. I stare at the door one last time, willing it to open, willing him to walk through it with that gorgeous smile and an apology and some explanation that makes this hurt less.
It doesn’t.
The room stays quiet.
The hallway stays empty.
And I’m left sitting here wondering how I could have been so wrong about everything.
Saturdaymorning,analertfinally rings through the room, but instead of the nervous anticipation I felt before, there's only dread. My hand slaps around the bed until I finally locate the phone underneath my hip.
Dmitri (10:07 A.M.)
Hey. Last night was…
