Of course it’s Talia. Of course she’s there.
My chest tightens painfully as the thoughts start to spiral, ugly and relentless. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was stupid to think this was real. That someone like Callum, famous, adored, golden, would truly choose me without eventually realising he could do better.
Someone easier. Someone polished. Someone who already fits into his world without whispers and side-eyes and online speculation. Someone like her.
I swallow hard, my vision blurring, and I keep walking, even when my legs start to ache, even when the cold seeps through my coat and into my bones. The city buzzes around me, uncaring. Cars pass. People laugh somewhere nearby. Life keeps moving as though nothing has just collapsed inside my chest. I think about turning back. The urge hits suddenly and violently, like a physical pull. I could go back. I could knock on his door. I could ask him what she was doing there, force him to explain, give him the chance to tell me I’ve got it wrong.
But then I picture his face when he sees me standing there, caught, exposed. I picture the hesitation. The guilt. The look that says he’s already chosen, and it’s not me. I can’t survive that. So, I keep walking.
By the time I make it home, my cheeks are wet and I don’t remember when I started crying. My flat greets me with silence, the familiar clutter and warmth doing nothing to soften the dull ache spreading through my chest. I kick off my shoes, shrug out of my coat, let it slide to the floor like I don’t have the energy to care.
My phone buzzes and I flinch, my heart leaping painfully before I even look. His name lights up the screen.
Callum.
For a long, terrible moment, I just stare at it. My thumb hovers uselessly over the glass. I imagine his voice, low and careful, asking where I am, telling me he can explain.
Explain what?
That he still has feelings for her? That he’s realised I’m not worth the mess?
The phone buzzes again. Then again. I turn it face down on the table. The silence that follows is deafening. I sink onto thesofa and curl in on myself, hugging a cushion to my chest as though it might stop my heart from splintering. My thoughts replay the scene over and over, cruel and vivid. Talia’s confident walk, the way she didn’t hesitate before getting into her car, as though she’d been exactly where she wanted to be. At his flat. With him.
I think about all the ways I’ve felt like an outsider lately. The looks at uni. The whispers. The way people talk about me like I’m a curiosity, a temporary distraction. Callum’s girlfriend. Not just Rose. Maybe this was always how it was going to end. Maybe I was naïve to believe I could step into his life and not eventually be swallowed whole by it.
My throat burns as another sob rips free. I press my hand to my mouth, trying to muffle the sound, embarrassed even though I’m alone.
God, I love him.
The realisation lands heavy and devastating, a final blow. Loving him felt so easy, so natural, like breathing or coming home. I trusted him with pieces of myself I didn’t even realise I’d been guarding. I let myself believe that when he looked at me like I was the only person in the room, he meant it.
Maybe he did. Maybe he still does. But feelings change. People change their minds.
I wipe my face angrily, furious with myself for crying this hard over a man who clearly hasn’t spared me the same consideration. Somewhere deep down, a small, cruel voice whispers that this is what happens when you reach too far outside your lane.
I check my phone despite myself.
Three missed calls. Two messages.
Rose, please. Where are you?
I need to talk to you.
My chest aches so badly I fear it might cave in. I type out a dozen replies in my head. Angry ones. Hurt ones. Ones where I ask him why she was there, why he didn’t tell me, why he made me feel safe when I wasn’t.
I don’t send any of them.
Instead, I set the phone down again and stand, needing to move before the walls close in completely. I wander into my bedroom, sit on the edge of the bed, and stare at the dent his body made in the mattress last time he stayed over. I can still smell him faintly on the sheets. That breaks me all over again.
I curl onto the bed and cry until my chest hurts and my eyes burn, and there’s nothing left but a dull, throbbing ache. At some point, exhaustion pulls me under, leaving me in a half-sleep filled with fractured memories of his laugh, his hands, the way he said my name like it meant something sacred.
Morning comes too soon. Grey light filters through the curtains, cruel and indifferent. For a few blessed seconds, I forget. Then it all crashes back in, heavy and merciless. I reach for my phone.
No new messages.
The absence hurts worse than anything else. It feels like confirmation, proof that he’s chosen silence over fighting for me. I swallow past the lump in my throat and force myself out of bed, moving through my morning on autopilot. Shower. Clothes. Coffee I barely taste. Every mirror feels like an accusation. I look smaller somehow, diminished by the doubt curling in my chest. I replay every moment with Callum, searching for signs I missed; every hesitation, every shadow in his eyes I brushed off as stress or exhaustion.
Was he already pulling away?
