But I'm still standing.
***
My phone has been quiet for three weeks.
No calls from Daniel. No texts. No flowers. No letters slipped under Gretchen's door.
After weeks of relentless harassment, suddenly... nothing.
At first, the silence was relief. Space to breathe. Permission to survive without his voice in my ear begging for forgiveness he didn't deserve.
Now it's something else. Something that makes me check my phone compulsively even though I tell myself I don't care.
I scroll through my messages. The last one from Daniel is three weeks old:Please. Just talk to me.
I blocked his number after that. Set up email filters to automatically delete anything from his address. Made Gretchen promise not to give him information about me.
And he stopped trying.
Which is what I wanted.
So why does it feel like abandonment?
"You keep checking your phone," Gretchen says from the kitchen.
I set it down quickly. "No, I'm not."
"You've looked at it six times in the last ten minutes."
"I'm just—"
"Checking to see if he's contacted you. You blocked him, Bay."
"I'm not checking for him."
She gives me a look. The one that saysI know you better than that.
"Okay, fine." I throw my hands up. "It's weird. He was relentless for weeks and now nothing. It's weird, right?"
"Maybe he finally got the message."
"Or maybe he stopped caring."
Gretchen sits across from me. "Does it matter which?"
Yes. No. I don't know.
"You told him to leave you alone," she says gently. "He's leaving you alone. That's what you wanted."
"I know."
"So why do you look so upset?"
I don't have an answer.
***
Trevor shows up at Luna's during my afternoon shift, carrying a sandwich from the deli down the block.
