“Did you say that to Harper?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
I grabbed my coat and walked to the door. “Thanks for trusting me,friend.”
The anger carriedme all the way home. It burned hot, keeping my hands clenched on the steering wheel and my jaw locked as the city lights streaked past the windshield. Every time the argument replayed in my head, the same frustration rose.
Why wouldn’t she just answer me?
By the time I pulled into my driveway, the anger hadn’t faded. It had only thickened, settling heavier behind my ribs.
I replayed the argument again and again. Each time, I heard my own voice more clearly. Each time it sounded harder, more demanding.
Do you even have emotions?
The words echoed back at me, jagged and unfiltered.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel until my knuckles went white. I hadn’t meant to attack her. I’d wanted honesty. Understanding. Somethingreal.
Instead, she’d shut me out. Folded her arms. Stared at me with that same impenetrable calm, like none of it mattered.
And I’d pushed harder.
I didn’t call her. Not because I didn’t want to—but because I refused to be the only one reaching. Pride dressed itself up as restraint, and I let it.
When days passed without her voice, it felt wrong. I caught myself reaching for my phone during meetings, during meals, during nothing at all. Every time I stopped myself, irritation flared again.
If she wanted distance, she had it.
When I missed her call during a meeting, her message waited for me afterward.
NYAH:
Hi. Hope you’re doing well. Just wanted to know if you’d be coming over for dinner this week. Lucas was asking about you. Take care and message when you can.
The casual tone irritated me more than it should have. As if nothing had happened.
I called the next day and kept my voice clipped, distant. “Hi. I’m heading to New York for a conference. I’ll be gone for about a week. If you or Lucas need anything, message me. I’ll call when I’m free.”
The coldness in my reply tasted bitter even as I spoke it, but I didn’t pull the words back.
She matched my tone perfectly. “Okay. Take care. Have a good trip.”
Her calm response snapped something inside me. I threw my phone onto my desk, pushed my chair back, and walked to the window. I’d never felt so… dismissed.
New York didn’t help.
The city buzzed around me, alive and indifferent, while I moved through it like a ghost. I attended meetings, shook hands, nodded through conversations, but my mind kept circling back to her apartment.
To the way she’d folded her arms in quiet defiance. To the way she hadn’t raised her voice once.
I had.
At night, alone in my hotel room, the anger started losing its edge. And questions began creeping in where certainty had been.
What if her silence wasn’t indifference? What if I’d mistaken strength for coldness because it didn’t look the way I believed it should?
