I didn’t think it was possible to miss someone so painfully like this. Something that settles in your bones and coils under your skin until even breathing feels like it might break you.
I just want to talk to him, about anything, and. know that we’re okay. That I didn’t ruin everything by wanting too much and the weeks we spent together weren’t some fragile, one-sided fantasy I built in my head. That he misses me even a little.
I swipe away a frustrated tear before it hits the pillow and type again. Still so full of want it might choke me.
Abby and I went shopping yesterday. It went about how you’d expect lol.
I couldn’t use your card. Not with her there.
Anyway, I hope whatever came up overthere isn’t too bad.
I stare at the screen long after it sends. Watching the little word ‘delivered’ sit there, unmoving.
An hour later, when he does not reply, I set the phone on my nightstand and roll over, burying myself under the covers. But they don’t warm me. Nothing does.
Not tonight.
The soft click of my heels echoes down the staircase, in sync with Abigail’s. We descend together, in full glam, masks perched delicately on our faces, ready for the night.
I smooth my hands over the rose-gold fabric, hugging my body like it was sewn directly onto my skin. My mask is gold, metallic, intricate, and molded to my face with small crystal details at the corners like frozen tears. It hides nothing, really. Somehow, it makes everything about me louder.
Beside me, Abigail looks like a goddamn vision. Her emerald green gown fits like a second skin, shimmering with every shift of her body. A deep V plunges down the front, just shy of scandalous, and her matching green mask is feathered at the corners, bold and dramatic, just like her. Her blonde hair is swept up in a soft twist, strands framing her glowing face. She looks exactly like the woman she’s always wanted to be.
“I feel like a Bond girl,” she whispers with a giddy grin.
I give her a soft smile, one that barely masks the tension threading through me. “You look like you could ruin a man and never apologize for it.”
“I’d prefer he thanked me,” she says with a wink as we round the corner into the living room.
And then I see him.
Calvin.
He stands by the fireplace like he owns the night. He wears a black tuxedo tailored so precisely it might’ve been sculpted onto his body, and the lines are impossibly sharp. His mask, sleek, gold-detailed, Venetian, covers the right side of his face, from forehead to jaw, adding an edge of mystery that somehow makes him look more dangerous.
And yet those dark, magnetic eyes of his are locked on me. Like he already knows what I look like beneath this dress. Like I belong to him.
I forget how to breathe. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since he left for Wisconsin, and all the emotions I’ve been trying to swallow crash over me at once: longing, hurt, confusion… and something sharper. Anger.
Anger because he left.
Anger because he never replied to any of my texts.
Anger because he looks calm. Composed. Beautiful.
Instead of looking like someone who missed me, who spent all night staring at a screen, waiting for a message that never came.
I don’t even know when he got home. Abigail and I were out all day. Hair, nails, makeup, every part of me had been distracted, occupied, until now. And now he’s here, looking like…him.
“You got me flowers!” Abigail squeals with delight, her voice snapping me out of my spiral.
I freeze mid-step.
He’s standing there, orchids in hand.
My heart bleeds.
I wish I hadn’t seen him first.
