Maria:
I don’t call him immediately.
I sit on the edge of my bed with my phone in my hand, staring at his name like it might rearrange itself into something easier to deal with if I wait long enough. It doesn’t. It stays exactly the same. Familiar. Heavy.
It has been days.
Not just silence. Not just space. Something colder than that. Something that feels deliberate.
I try to tell myself I’m overthinking it. That maybe this is what a break is supposed to feel like. That maybe I’m the one making it into something it isn’t.
But a break shouldn’t feel like this.
A break shouldn’t feel like you’ve been quietly removed from someone’s life without being told.
My thumb hovers over his name, then presses before I can change my mind.
It rings.
I almost hang up.
Then he answers.
“Hey.”
H
