That man wouldn’t lie.
Wouldn’t ghost.
Wouldn’t disappear behind half-truths I used to drown in.
He’s just overwhelmed;I told myself.
Short-staffed at the precinct.
Doing the best he can.
Busy doesn’t mean disinterested.
But busy doesn’t hollow you out either. Doesn’t leave you checking your phone at midnight, rereading old messages just to feel something that looks like love.
And disinterest doesn’t feel like betrayal… until it does.
The silence stretched, and I started to get lost in my mind... the ache and worry had calcified into something sharper. Something closer to fear. Loss.
We hadn't put a label on us, but we had been seeing each other for somewhere around 8 months. Should I have clarified, put a label on us, ensured he knew we were exclusive?
What if he was finally over my issues, tired of my moods and inability to let him in all the way?
I was with Remi when it finally broke.
In the clinic, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, papers stacked high like they could bury us both. She was updating a file on one of our new patients, a man in his sixties still learning how to grieve the old version himself and his mistakes. I was pretending to work, staring at my phone like it might explain the silence, debating whether another text made me look desperate or just determined.
Then the message came through.
Blocked number.
No subject. No words.
Just a picture.
I opened it without thinking.
At first, it didn’t register. Steam clouding glass. A familiar silhouette blurred through condensation. A shower I didn't recognize.
And then it clicked.
Harlan. Head bowed. One hand braced on the tile, water running down his back.
And in the mirror, just to the left of the fogged frame, so perfectly angled it made my blood run cold...
Erin. Naked. Damp. Phone raised just right.
Her smile in the reflection was sharp enough to carve me open.
No.
No, she wouldn’t.
But she would.
And him? He wouldn’t… right?
He couldn't do something like this to me...
