MY HANDSOME ROOMATE

Missing him

The door clicked shut behind Ethan, and suddenly the room felt too quiet.

Not the peaceful kind of quiet.

The kind that makes your thoughts louder.

I stared at the ceiling for a while, holding my phone loosely in my hand, hoping it would buzz again.

It didn’t.

Ryan still hadn’t sent another message.

I opened our chat again and reread the last thing he said.

That’s weird.

That was it.

No questions.

No teasing.

No “Are you okay with that?”

Just… weird.

A lump formed in my throat.

I turned onto my side and pulled my blanket closer, even though the room wasn’t cold.

Maybe he didn’t care.

Maybe he had already moved on.

The thought made my chest ache.

Two months ago, Ryan and I used to talk every day. Sometimes until two in the morning. We had plans—real ones. Talking about visiting each other in college, about how we would make the distance work.

And then suddenly we didn’t.

The breakup had been calm. Too calm.

No yelling. No huge fight.

Just Ryan saying, “Maybe we should focus on college for now.”

At the time, I told myself it made sense.

But now, lying alone in a dorm room hundreds of miles from home, it just felt like losing something important.

My eyes started burning.

I blinked a few times, trying to stop it, but the tears came anyway.

I wiped my face quickly, even though no one was there to see me.

“Seriously, emi, I muttered quietly to myself.

But the more I tried not to cry, the worse it got.

I turned my phone back on and opened our conversation again.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard.

I miss you.

The words appeared on the screen before I could stop myself.

My chest tightened.

Should I send it?

Maybe he missed me too.

Maybe he was just being careful.

Or maybe he didn’t want to say anything because we had already broken up.

I stared at the message for a long time.

If I sent it, everything would change.

He might say he missed me too.

Or he might not.

And somehow the second possibility scared me more.

My vision blurred again, and I quickly locked my phone before I could do something stupid.

I sat up on the bed, wiping my face with the sleeve of my sweater.

“Get it together,” I whispered.

I needed a distraction.

Anything that would stop my brain from replaying every memory of Ryan over and over again.

I slid off the bed and knelt beside my suitcase.

Most of my stuff was already unpacked, but my smaller bag was still zipped shut.

I opened it slowly and started pulling things out—chargers, notebooks, a small makeup pouch.

Then my hand brushed against something soft.

I froze.

Slowly, I pulled it out.

Ryan’s hoodie.

My throat tightened instantly.

It was the dark gray one he used to wear all the time during football games. The sleeves were a little too long on me, but he had given it to me one night when it got cold.

“You can keep it,” he had said. “Looks better on you anyway.”

I held the hoodie against my chest for a moment before realizing my hands were shaking.

Why had I brought this?

I knew exactly why.

Because a part of me still wasn’t ready to let him go.

I placed the hoodie on the bed beside me, trying to ignore the memories that came with it.

But when I reached back into the bag, my fingers touched something else.

Something small.

I pulled it out slowly.

A thin silver bracelet.

Ryan had given it to me on my birthday last year.

I ran my thumb gently across the metal.

And then I saw the last thing in the bottom of the bag.

A small ring.

It wasn’t an engagement ring or anything like that. Just a simple one he had jokingly given me at a carnival after winning one of those impossible games.

“Proof that I’m good at something,” he had said proudly.

I had worn it almost every day after that.

Until the breakup.

I sat there on the floor staring at the three things in front of me—the hoodie, the bracelet, and the ring.

Each one carrying a memory I wasn’t sure I was ready to face.

My chest tightened again.

Did he still like me?

Did he ever think about me the way I was thinking about him right now?

Or had he already moved on without even looking back?

I picked up my phone again.

The message was still there.

I miss you.

All I had to do was press send.

My thumb hovered over the screen.

Before I could decide, the dorm room door suddenly opened.

I looked up quickly, startled.

Ethan stepped inside holding a paper bag.

He froze the moment he saw me sitting on the floor surrounded by my things.

His eyes moved from my face to the hoodie on the bed… then to the bracelet and ring in my hands.

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then he cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Uh… I brought extra fries,” he said carefully. “In case you wanted some.”

I quickly wiped my face and looked away.

“Thanks.”

He stepped inside and gently closed the door, like he didn’t want to disturb something fragile in the room.

And for the first time since he became my accidental roommate, the silence between us felt different.