Yeah.
How’s your head?
I stare at the screen until the words blur. One text. One fucking text, and not for almost twelve hours after he left.
NoI’m coming back.
NoI want this.
No explanation or apology. Nothing more than a lazy check-in, like this was a one night stand he'd rather forget but is too polite to let slide.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I typeFineand delete it. TypeWhat the fuck, Dmitri?and deletethat too. TypeYou left me waiting all nightandWas this really nothing to you?and delete those even faster.
In the end, I do nothing. I set the phone face-down on the nightstand, curl deeper into the blanket, and tell myself if he really cared, he’d send more. He’d call. He’s right down the hall for fuck’s sake. If he wanted to, he’d show up.
He doesn’t.
The weekend passes in a blur of silence and regret. Sleep comes in fitful hours or not at all, and nothing feels right. The room is too small, the bed too empty, and the clock too fucking loud. At one point, I rip it off the wall and hurl it across the room, shattering the plastic and scattering the batteries across the floor.
At least the ticking stops after that.
It’s fucking pathetic how much I want him to walk back through that door. And I know that if he came back and offered me any sort of explanation at all to where he went, I’d accept it. I’ddevourit, because the alternative is this never-ending pain, and I’ve never hurt like this before.
By Monday morning I’m empty. I drag myself out of bed, splash water on my face, pull on the first clean clothes I find, and head outside because staying in that room one more second feels like drowning.
Campus is busy. Students crisscross the paths, coffee cups in hand while laughing about weekendstories I can’t bear to hear. My heart is lodged in my neck, so painful I’m convinced I just need to let it fall right out of me. I approach the spot we meet at before class, dread burning like acid in my gut.
He won’t be there.
He can’tpossiblybe there, because this is all a giant misunderstanding. Ithasto be. He’ll be missing, and I’ll find out something happened. Maybe he got sick and had to sleep the weekend away. Maybe he had a family emergency and had to rush home, and lost his phone in the process.
It’s convenient, but I’d take it.
I’ll feel like an asshole for assuming the worst, but then I’ll tell him what I went through, and he’ll take care of me. It’ll still hurt, but eventually we’ll laugh about it.
I round the corner, and there he is. He’s sitting on one of the low stone walls with his legs stretched out, wearing the same dark hoodie from Friday night and his hair messy like he just rolled out of bed.There's a coffee in one hand, and his phone in the other.
So much for that theory.
He doesn't look sick, or apologetic, or like he had a crisis that kept him from reaching out.
He looksnormal.
Like the world didn’t end for him two nights ago.
My stomach plummets as I tell myself I should turn around and walk the other way. Pretend I didn’t see him, and protect these final shreds of my dignity while I still have them. But my body doesn’t listen, and my feet keep moving.
Dmitri looks up when I’m ten feet away, and nausea hits me hard enough to make bile burn up my throat. Dark circles are faint under his eyes, enough to make me wonder if he lost sleep, too.
“Hey,” he says, setting his phone down. “You survived the weekend?”
The casual greeting lands hard. My mouth opens, then closes, and for a moment, I can’t find words. “Yeah,” I finally manage, though my voice sounds thin. “Survived.”
He tilts his head, that damn forced smile fading as he studies me. “You look… rough.”
Notperfect.
Notgorgeous.
