Alex, first. Of course.
Alex:
Hey. Just checking in. You don’t have to respond. I justwanted you to know I’m here.
Mark, a few minutes later.
Mark:
I hope you’re okay. If you want company, distraction, or silence—I can provide all three.
Jamie.
Jamie:
I’m so sorry. None of that should have happened. You didn’t deserve any of it.
I stare at her name longer than the others.
She saw it.
All of it.
And she tried to stop it.
That matters.
Then—lower on the screen, timestamped earlier than the rest, like he never slept?—
Derek:
Are you okay?
The simplicity of it nearly undoes me.
Are you okay.
As if that’s the question.
As if last night exists in isolation—unconnected to Sunday, to Tuesday, to the careful way he pulled back emotionally and then crossed every line physically. As if intimacy two nights after being with someone else is neutral. As if letting me into his car, his quiet, his life meant something different than it did.
My thumb hovers.
Then I block his number.
No ceremony.
No explanation.
The screen confirms it with a soft, neutral message.
I set the phone face-down again and exhale slowly.
Blocking him isn’t punishment.
It’s containment.
I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed, bare feet meeting cool wood. The apartment is quiet in that Saturday-morning way that feels suspended—no urgency, no schedule pressing down yet. Just space.
