My voice shook loose. “Who is she?”
He shrugged, looked at the wall. “Doesn’t matter.”
The woman’s eyes darted between us, frightened now. “I didn’t know?—”
I couldn’t hear her finish. Every muscle felt locked. My hand shook but I couldn’t drop my phone. The silence stretched thin enough to cut. He was watching me the way people watch fireworks from behind a window — distant, safe, vaguely entertained.
At last he sighed. “It’s not what it looks like.”
That line hit harder than any slap.Not what it looks like.He sat there, still smirking, the sheet slipping to his lap. The lie landed with a dull thud, heavy and final.
I stepped back, tripped on the doorframe. My heartbeat filled the whole space, drowning the city noise, drowning everything except that half-laugh still ghosting around his mouth.
The charger I’d come for lay on the desk beside the bed — the white cord coiled neat. I stared at it, one useless, ordinary thing that hadn’t betrayed me.
The woman turned her face away. Her shoulders trembled.
I crossed the room. Every step sounded too loud. Picked up the charger, shoved it into my pocket. My hands didn’t feel like mine.
Nate leaned back, eyes half-lidded. “Close the door when you leave.”
The sound that tore from me wasn’t words. It was short, ugly, raw. I didn’t wait to see his reaction. I turned, the charger wire tangling around my fingers, and walked out into the silent hall where the perfume couldn’t reach me.
The hallway lights flickered, harsh and sterile after the dim glow of his apartment. My breath came fast, too loud in the stillness. I didn’t look back. Not once.
The elevator loomed at the end of the corridor, its chrome doors dull and warped, throwing back a bent reflection — some twisted version of me, eyes wide and hollow. I jabbed the button.
My phone buzzed before the doors slid open. The vibration rattled through my pocket like a trapped insect.
We should talk. You’re overreacting.
My son, overreacting. The word scraped across my chest. I stared at the message until the letters blurred, then flicked the screen dark and hit airplane mode.
The elevator opened with a tired sigh. Inside, the smell of disinfectant burned my nose — clean, empty, merciful. I leaned against the metal railing, thumb hovering over the photo gallery. I hesitated just long enough to hate the hesitation.
Then I started deleting. Us at Coney Island, wind whipping my hair. Him grinning, sun-cut across his jaw. Our hands — always his idea to take those stupid hand pictures. Gone. One thumb press after another.
The ride groaned downward, floor by floor. My reflection grew sharper in the mirrored panel — just me now. No arm slungaround my shoulder, no face leaning into mine. Every ping of deletion felt like a pulse finally syncing with itself.
By the time the elevator reached the lobby, my camera roll looked bare, like someone else’s life wiped clean.
I stepped out into the sharp night air. The city roared — traffic, sirens, laughter from the corner bar — all of it louder than the silence he’d left behind. I let the noise swallow me whole and kept walking.
Hannah openedthe door before I even knocked, hair pulled into a messy knot, hoodie swallowing her frame. Behind her, the living room glowed soft with string lights and the faint hum of a kettle. The sight of her—safe, familiar—split something in my chest.
I barely got her name out before my knees gave. She caught me, arms wrapping tight as my chest collapsed into ragged sobs. The sound scraped raw from somewhere deep, all the words I hadn’t said to Nate pouring out in broken gasps.
She eased me inside, shutting the door with her foot.
I tried to speak through the mess of tears. “I walked in on him—with someone else.”
She didn’t answer, just guided me to the couch, pressed a mug into my hands. Her apartment smelled like mint tea and detergent. The silence around me felt heavy, safer than words.
When I could finally breathe, I rubbed at my face. My fingers came away wet and trembling. “I wasted a year on him.” The words landed flat. “A whole damn year.”
Hannah leaned forward, elbows on her knees, eyes sharp.
“I was never more than his plus-one,” I kept going. “Every time I walked in a room, I was ‘Nate Ransom’s girlfriend,’ not Billie Donovan, not—anything.”
