The problem was everyone else.
Nico. Tyler. The guy whose name I’d saved as “Gym Shoulders” because I’d never learned his real one. Dex, whom I’d hooked up with twice in January and who texted every few weeks like clockwork. A handful of numbers I didn’t recognize anymore, probably from nights I barely remembered.
They kept texting. Because, of course they did. I hadn’t told any of them I was seeing someone. Hadn’t changed my profile on the apps. Hadn’t done any of the administrative work of actually being unavailable. Because unavailable meant real.
It was a Thursday night. Ellis was at his apartment in Brooklyn, working late on some server migration that had the whole IT department pullingovertime. I sat on my couch scrolling through messages I should’ve answered weeks ago.
Dex: hey stranger. free this weekend?
I stared at the text. Six weeks ago, I would’ve already been typing back. Dex was easy. Fun. No expectations, no feelings, no morning-after awkwardness because we’d perfected the art of the clean exit.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard.
Then I thought about Ellis. About waking up next to him three mornings in a row last week because neither of us could think of a good reason to sleep apart. About the toothbrush he’d left in my bathroom without asking, like it belonged there. About the way he said my name when he was half-asleep, soft and certain, like I was the first thing his brain reached for.
I deleted the entire conversation with Dex. Then Nico. Then Tyler. Then Gym Shoulders and the nameless numbers and every last thread that belonged to the version of me that existed before Ellis walked into Foundation Fitness.
My phone sat lighter when I was done.
I called Sierra.
She picked up on the second ring. “What’s wrong?”
“Why does something have to be wrong?”
“You called instead of texted, and the last time you called me, your apartment flooded.” A pause. The click of a camera shutter in the background. “Talk to me.”
“I deleted every hookup in my phone.”
The shutter stopped. “Oh my god.”
“All of them. I just wiped them all out.”
“That’s growth.”
“It feels like jumping off a building and hoping there’s a net.”
“There’s a net. His name is Ellis.”
The question pressed heavy into the silence. Outside my window, a sirenwailed and faded. The fairy lights buzzed with their low electric hum.
“I’m afraid I’ll ruin it. That I’ll get bored and hurt him.” My voice came out raw. “He’s too good for someone like me, Sierra.”
“You’re not that person anymore.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that person wouldn’t have deleted those contacts. That person wouldn’t be calling me at ten o’clock on a Thursday night spiraling over this.” Her voice softened. “You’re changing, Jett. It’s terrifying. But it’s not trouble.”
I leaned back and pressed the heel of my hand against my eyes. The apartment swallowed sound without Ellis in it. When had that changed?
“I miss him, and he’s a few miles away. What kind of pathetic is that?”
Sierra laughed, soft and low. “The best kind.”
Movie night at Sierra’s apartment.
I showed up forty minutes late with a bag of microwave popcorn and a guilty conscience. I’d been at Ellis’ place until five, tangled up in his sheets while he read code documentation and I scrolled through vendor quotes for an upcoming wedding. Domestic. Boring. The kind of afternoon I never thought I’d choose over anything.
