Tonight, though... I broke. I almost called her.
My hands were shaking as I pulled up her number. I told myself I’d just hear her voice once, just a second.
When she answered, her voice was soft, a little out of breath—like she’d been laughing. “Vincent?”
And I froze. Every word I wanted to say, every apology, every confession—it died on my tongue. Because what if Steven was next to her? What if she was lying on his chest when she answered? What if she’d already given him the pieces of her that once belonged to me?
I panicked. I hung up.
She called back once, then twice. I stared at the screen until it stopped ringing. My chest felt like it was caving in, my stomach in knots.
And then Steven called. His voice was too cheerful, too proud, like he had just won the lottery. I remember sitting there, phone pressed to my ear, listening to him trip over his words because he was so damn excited.
“V, you’re not gonna believe this,” he said, breathless, like he had just run a mile. “Last night... I kissed her. And I asked her to be my girlfriend.”
For a second, I thought he was joking. I even laughed, waiting for the punchline. But it never came. Instead, there was silence on the other end of the line, a silence that carried weight. My stomach dropped as I asked, “She said yes?”
And then he laughed—that loud, giddy laugh that only Steven can manage when he’s really overflowing with happiness. And it happens rarely. “Yeah. She said yes.”
I could hear it in his voice—the disbelief, the joy, the way he wanted to tell the whole damn world. He sounded like he had just been handed everything he’d ever wanted.
And I? I sat there frozen, torn in half. Because part of me was genuinely happy for him—he’s my best friend, he deserves to smile like that. But the other part... the part I try to bury every day... it ached. It burned. It screamed at me that I’d just lost my girl.
He went on, rambling about how her hand fit perfectly in his, how she laughed against his lips after the kiss, how he still couldn’t believe she chose him. I forced myself to laugh along, to encourage him, to tell him how proud I was. Because that’s what a best friend does, right?
But when the call ended, and the silence of my room swallowed me whole, I realized something brutal: the sound of Steven’s happiness had just cracked me wide open.
Since then, my mind won’t stop torturing me with pictures of them together.
I see his hand slipping into hers as they walk down the street. I see her head resting on his shoulder during some late-night movie. I see her hair fanned out across his pillow while she’s sleeping in his bed. I hear her laugh, the one I lived for, and now it’s echoing for him.
I imagine him knowing what it feels like to make her blush, to make her gasp, to make her whisper his name in the dark.
It’s eating me alive.
After I hung up, I locked myself in my room with my guitar, my songbook, and two blank pads of paper. Max didn’t bother knocking. He just left a tray with dinner at my door. He must’ve known the moment he saw me heading to my room, clutching my guitar and notebooks.
Now the floor’s littered with crumpled sheets—half-written songs, abandoned lyrics. I can’t stop writing, can’t stop playing. I need to get this love out of my system before it eats me alive.
But it’s already too late.
CHAPTER-SIXTY-TWO
Vincent Cooper
PRESENT (2023)
“Give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string; I wouldn’t get bored anywhere.”
Keith Richards
They scheduled Steven’s lung surgery for October. Last night I bought the first plane ticket I could find, without telling anyone, and this morning I went to the academy to finalize my withdrawal papers.
I can’t stay here anymore. I have to go home. To San Francisco. I can’t keep running from problems when my best friend needs me. He needs me there.
Tomorrow I fly back. No one knows except Max. Not even my parents.
It’s reckless, I know. But I can’t stay here another day. Not when Steven finally has a chance to say goodbye to cancer, and he needs someone by his side through every check-up, every hospital visit because I know he won’t let Nova be that person.
