Fuck, just thinking her name makes my chest ache. I didn’t expect her to message again after the one I ignored, but she did. Twice. Then a third—the voice note. That one I deserved.
I shut my eyes, her words burning my eyelids.
Thought you were better than ghosting, but apparently not. Thanks for making me feel like an idiot. I hope whatever your reason is, it was worth it.
It wasn’t.
It really, really fucking wasn’t.
Footsteps echo down the hallway, and I lift my head. It’s Beck—boots unlaced, mug in hand, sleep creasing his face.
“You’re up.”
“So are you,” I mutter.
He shrugs. “Call earlier shook me a bit.”
“Yeah.” I rake a hand through my hair. “Glad the kid was alright.”
Beck grunts and drops into the armchair across from mine. He takes a sip of whatever sludge he calls coffee, then fixes me with a look. “You up messaging that girl again?”
“Nah.” I grimace. “That’s dead in the water.”
“Shit,” he mutters. “Sorry, didn’t mean to poke.”
“S’okay.” I rub the back of my neck as Evan walks in, making his way to the coffee machine. “It’s not likesheghostedme.”
Evan turns, brows pulling together. “Wait—youghostedher?”
The disbelief in his voice punches harder than it should.
“You told us she was different,” Beck says, propping a boot on the coffee table. “You were halfway gone over her.”
I close my eyes and let my head drop back against the recliner.
“I know.”
“You don’t ghost someone you care about,” Evan says carefully. “Especially not someone who made youtalk.”
And that’s the thing, she did. She made me talk. About my job, my cat, the shit I never say out loud. About Christmas. My dad. Everything I’ve buried so deep I figured it’d stay buried.
“She asked if I wanted to meet,” I say quietly. “And I panicked. Just… left her hanging.”
The silence in the room is brutal. Evan leans a shoulder against the doorway, raising his brows. “You never thought you would?”
“I’d thought about it, but when she asked…” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “I didn’t even reply.”
Beck nods, pursing his lips. “So instead of being an adult, you ghosted her.”
I don’t answer.
“Jesus, Fletch,” Evan mutters. “It’s been...”
Three years. Since Connie, and the Christmas where everything cracked. Since I held my dad’s hand in his hospital bed and told him I was going to ask her to marry me.
Three years since I walked through my front door on New Year's Eve, with two coffees and an engagement ring in my pocket, only to find her in bed with another guy. One she’d been sleeping with for months.
Dad’s hand had tightened around mine when I told him the next day. Didn’t say anything, just gave me a look like he already knew I wasn’t going to come back from it clean.
