Everything was perfect until graduation season made everything louder. Flashbulbs, laughter, parties spilling out of restaurants along Taft Avenue. But inside the Arcilla condo, the silence was different, not heavy, just stretched too thin.
Roxanne and Keith were still together. Or at least pretending to be. They still looked perfect in photos, still arrived at school events side by side. But Abbie could see it, the space between them growing, invisible, polite, unfixable.
Keith hadn’t changed much. Still relaxed, confident, charming in that maddening, effortless way. But something in his voice had shifted. He spoke like someone already halfway out the door.
That night, over dinner, he said it so casually Abbie almost missed it.
“My parents are flying me back after graduation,” he said
