It feels less like forgetting and more like betrayal.
That thought loops through my head on repeat. No matter how hard I try to shake it, I can still hear him—the way he said my name like it meant something, the promise that it wouldn’t end that night.
That’s a lie. This ends here, Tessa, before it gets worse.
My stomach knots. I walk faster across campus, boots crunching over salt, my breath coming out too quickly. It feels like I’m still in my bedroom with him, still clinging to a promise that was never going to happen.
By the time I get to my dorm, my fingers are numb from the cold, shaking too much to get the key in on the first try. I push the door open, a wave of heat hitting me as I step inside and kick it shut behind me.
Summer’s gone for the night at work, thank God. I’m not ready to try to explain my mood when I’m struggling to make sense of it myself. The quiet feels like breathing room.
Then I remember the hoodie he left behind.
I don’t think, I just move. Straight to my dresser, to the drawer I swore I’d stop opening. My hands dig through folded clothes until I find it—baby-blue cotton, soft from wear, still holding the faint trace of his cologne.
The Kolmont hoodie. His hoodie.
My throat tightens instantly. Tears fill my eyes, but anger hits harder.
I grab a plastic bag from the closet—the one I started for donations—and shove the hoodie inside. The crinkle of the bag grates on my already thin nerves. My chest heaves, like throwing it away could finally scrape him out of me.
But when I knot the bag and look at it sitting there, I can’t do it.
A sound tears out of me, somewhere between a sob and a gasp. I yank it back out and shove it into the drawer again, slamming it shut so hard the dresser rattles. My phone lights up on the nightstand. My thumb moves before I can stop it.
You could’ve told me.Delete.
Why didn’t you say anything?Delete.
Was I just—Delete.
I stop. My hands are shaking so bad the words blur, tears stinging my eyes.
For a second, I hover oversend.I want him to see it—to feel even a fraction of what’s burning through me.
But what if he doesn’t answer?
Or worse, what if he does and proves me right?
I backspace until the screen’s blank again, then toss the phone onto the bed. I drop onto the edge of the mattress, elbows on my knees, hands over my face.
I hate that even now, when I’m angry, it’s his touch I remember. Worse, the thought of it still calms me.
When I finally stop shaking, I grab my books and try to study, anything to keep my mind off him. The dorm’s gone quiet. My notes are spread across the bed, highlighters scattered like candy. Telling myself it’ll help to focus on something else is pointless. My brain keeps replaying the same moment from the coffee shop—
“Did you hear who they hired as the new hockey assistant coach? Clay Barlowe.”
Every time I hear it again in my head, it burns hotter.
Anger with nowhere to go is its own kind of torture. It builds until it eats you alive.
He didn’t tell me. He let me find out from whispers and headlines. Maybe he thought staying quiet would make it easier. Maybe pretending I didn’t exist would ease the fallout and make it less messy when our families found out.
But I’m not eighteen anymore. I’m not the girl waiting for him to choose me. And I sure as hell won’t be his secret.
If Clay’s going to be here—on the same campus, in the same town—then he doesn’t get to pretend I never mattered.
He doesn’t get the last word.
