“I see.”
“Yeah.”
Reid is still watching me, and I can’t tear my eyes away from him. I still can’t believe he’s here and that after everything, I’m standing in front of him again.
I remember that morning so clearly. The chaos of emotions, the heaviness in my chest, the confusion. At first, I thought he just needed space. I assumed I would hear from him in a day or two.
But then he didn’t show up for class.
Not the next day, or the next.
I texted him—nothing.
Called him—nothing.
I thought something terrible had happened. That he’d drunk himself into a blackout or gotten into a fight with the wrong person. I went to his apartment. Empty. His favorite bar—no sign of him.
And the worst part? There was no one I could even call to check if he was alive. I had never met a single member of his family. He didn’t talk to anyone except me.
I only found out he was still alive weeks later, when the college confirmed he’d picked up his graduation paperwork.
That was when it sank in.
He wasn’t hurt.
He wasn’t missing.
He was just… gone.
Gone because he wanted to be.
Gone because staying with me wasn’t something he could stomach anymore.
And God, that hurt.
It wasn’t the end of the relationship that gutted me—I always knew the thing between us had an expiration date. Neither of us wanted to define what we were because we knew it might break under the weight of a label.
It was how it ended. That was what sliced me open.
We were friends before anything else. Kindred spirits. Soulmates, even. I told him things I’d never said out loud to another human being. He’d shown me his ugliest truths in return. I thought—naïvely, stupidly—that at the very least, that meant I’d get the courtesy of an explanation. A goodbye. Something.
But no.
He left me without even letting me know if he was alive.
And now he’s standing here smiling at me like nothing happened.
Bitterness creeps up the back of my throat, hot and sharp. I hate him. I hate him so much I could scream.
And yet I can’t stop looking at him.
His smoldering eyes.
The beauty mark under his left eye that I used to kiss.
Those deep-set lines in his forehead.
The extra silver in his hair—which annoyingly makes him even hotter.