Page 143 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

Then Andi leaned back, crossing her arms. “Haven’t you learned anything?”

I frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”

“From everything,” she said. “From before. From them.”

My chest tightened a little.

“From who?” I asked, though something in me already knew.

“From your exes,” Andre filled in.

Something in me stilled.

Andi added, softer now, “Francis didn’t come back for nothing.”

“And Kyle.” Andre added.

“And Rick.” Honey said.

Mel nudged Honey lightly, shooting all of them a look of warning.

I blinked.

Once.

Slow…

Silence fell over the table.

Because suddenly, I found it strange now—how all of my exes came at the same time… the same night. Then slowly, one by one, they came back into my life, like ghosts that knew exactly where to haunt me.

Andi and Mel went way back with me in college. Naturally, they knew Francis.

Kyle was friends with Andre even before I dated him.

And Honey? Out of all of my friends, she had always been close to Rick.

“They just… reached out,” I said, but even to my ears, it sounded thin.

My fingers curled slightly, gripping the fabric of my pants.

A thought was forming now—quiet and unwelcome, but too precise to ignore.

I looked at them… really looked at them and asked, “How did my exes come back all at once?”

No one answered.

But the guilt on their faces said enough.

My jaw tightened.

“How did my exes come back all at once?” I repeated, slower this time. Sharper.

Still nothing.

The silence stretched—thick and suffocating.

And suddenly, all those coincidences I had accepted without question started lining up in my head.