“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she murmurs. “It just… happened.”
“Yeah. That’s the thing about betrayal—it alwaysjust happens, right?”
She flinches. Barely.
But I want her to hurt. I want her to feel what I’m feeling. Chloe made it look easy—replacing me like I was just a placeholder she forgot to erase.
And I stood there, trying to understand a version of us that apparently only existed in my head.
So I meet her gaze. “It wasn’t the lie that broke me. It was how fast you pretended I never mattered.”
She doesn’t reply, just moves into the kitchen, collecting what she came for then heads into the bedroom for a few minutes. Classic Chloe, always running from conflict.
I stay rooted to the spot I’m standing in, waiting, burning in the silence.
Chloe reappears, a bag slung over her shoulder, the damn Dutch oven propped on her hip. She finally says, “You gave me everything. But you neverreallysaw me. You saw who you wanted me to be. You made me into your ‘forever girl’ as though I was some box on your checklist. But I needed more than perfect weekends and predictable plans. I needed real.”
“I was real.”
“You were safe,” she corrects. “Comfortable.Wayover the top with gestures, if I’m being honest. But you never asked whatIwanted.”
My brow furrows, taking in her words.
Chloe’s voice drops to a whisper. “You were going to ask me to move in. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself—if you were so very much in love with me, why didn’t you buy a ring instead of a key?”
Those words sink deeper than the silence ever did.
“You loved the idea of me more than you ever really lovedme.”
I’m mute. I don’t have an answer. She’s right.
She moves to the door. “I’m not apologizing for wanting more.”
“Jackson?” His name curdles on my tongue like sour milk. “He’s your more?”
She pauses by the doorway, eyes steady. “He doesn’t see who I could be. Or who I used to be. He just sees… me.”
I stare at her.
“I’ll send a service to retrieve the rest of my things.”
Then she’s gone. No fanfare. No slammed door. Only the sound of heels against hardwood, and then the quietest click I’ve ever heard as the door shuts behind her.
I stand there, alone, surrounded by shadows and silence and the faint trace of her perfume in the air.
I’m hollow. Someone scooped out everything good and left the shell behind. Even the air feels borrowed.
Because now it’s over.
Undeniably over.
The next morning creeps in like a tender bruise I didn’t notice yesterday, and it’s just starting to hurt.
I haven’t really slept. Not since Chloe dropped what was left of us on my living room floor and strutted out like a divorce court contestantcarrying a consolation prize. Apparently, the Dutch oven was the hill she chose to die on.
Her words are still rattling around in my skull.
You loved the version of me you made up in your head.
