Nothing.
Not a single trace of her.
Gone.
I stand there, trying to process it, trying to make it make sense—but my brain just echoes in one word:gone.
A sharp breath leaves me, ragged and uneven, like I just took a punch to the ribs.
I walk quickly to the bathroom next, pulling back the vanity drawer.
Empty.
No toothbrush. No moisturizer she made me try and then laughed when I said it “felt like pudding.” No bobby pins scattered like confetti across the counter.
I turn in a slow, stunned circle like maybe I missed something. Like maybe she’s hiding behind the door, or under the sink, oranywhere.
But the silence isn’t just quiet. It’shollow.
I step back out into the hallway. Into the living room.
Her tote bag isn’t by the door.
Her sandals are gone from the mat.
I scan the room again, hoping—what, exactly? That I hallucinated the emptiness? That maybe she just moved things around?
But I know better.
She didn’t move things.
Shetookthem.
She packed her stuff. Her books. Her clothes. Her pillow, her shoes, her laugh, her presence—all of it.
She didn’t just leave the room.
She leftme.
I feel something dangerous settling in the pit of my stomach.
Not anger.
Not panic.
But something close.
Regret.
And the awful, creeping suspicion that I just made the biggest mistake of my life.
I pace the living room, then snatch up my phone from the coffee table.
No texts.
No calls.
Nothing.
