When I finally reach the house, my hands are trembling so hard I almost drop the keys. His keys. I open the door and step into the quiet. The picture Lily drew of the three of us laughs at my naïveté.
I’m packing it anyway. She made that for me.
My chest caves entirely.
I should wait. Ask. Breathe. But the part of me that still believed people stay—the part that waited too many times for explanations that never came—lost its pulse. I convince myself to call him. Shaky fingers press the green button but it rings until it goes to voicemail.
Pragmatic, survival-mode Mia takes the wheel and she works on autopilot. So I pack. The things that are mine, or half mine. The dress I wore the night he told me he couldn’t imagine life without me. The book he gave me with his note tucked between the pages—Read this when I can’t wake up next to you.
My hands shake harder.
This isn’t me overreacting. This is muscle memory. My body remembering what it means to be left behind.
Every empty drawer I close sounds final. The suitcase zipper answers with a low, merciless rasp.
I crumple onto the bed, and the first sob hits sharp enough to hurt. After that, I can’t stop. I pressmy face into his pillow, and it smells like everything I thought I’d finally earned.
It’s hard to breathe. I want to scream. Laugh hysterically. I want to be cold and not care. I want to be the kind of woman who can make a joke, call Callie and say, “You won’t believe the shit that just happened.”
But I can’t. I’m not that woman.
It mattered. He mattered. I was a fool to think the universe would ever let something good stay. And I had settled with that truth—until he came around, surpassing book boyfriends, dangling promises I never dared want out loud.
The door opens downstairs.
I freeze.
“Mia?”
He’s breathless, sounding raw, his worry filling the hall.
Even my name sounds broken from his lips.
I press my palms to my eyes, trying to erase the tears, but they won’t stop coming.
The footsteps are now on the stairs. Fast. Desperate.
The bedroom door swings open, and there he is—face flushed, hair windblown, chest heaving as if he’s sprinted miles.
He stops midway when he sees the suitcase.
“Mia, what?—”
“Don’t.” I raise a finger. “Please don’t. You’ve made your choice.”
He enters the room anyway, words spilling out before I can build a wall high enough to protect me.
“I did. I choose you. Every day, every time. What are you talking about?”
“Stop right there.” He does. I laugh—a small, shattered sound. “You ran afterher. You saw her, and you ran afterher.”
“It wasn’t her,” he says, voice almost breaking. “It wasn’t Blake.”
“Do you think that matters? Or makes it any less awful? You thought it was. And you left me behind to run after her.” Fresh tears burn, making me angrier, pushing reason further away.
“No.” He pauses, eyes desperate. “I know that’s how it might’ve sounded like. And looked like.” He rakes a hand through his hair, pacing. “I won’t pretend I know how that felt. I didn’t have time to explain, Mia, but I wasn’t runningafterher.”
I throw my head back and laugh, the sound manic and condescending. He says it with unblinking certainty, as though I didn’t watch him bolt.
