The Accidental Plus One

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Josephine's POV

"What the hell." Ann's eyes were locked on her phone, her thumb frozen mid-scroll. She looked up at me, then back down, like she was hoping she'd misread something.

"Tell me this is a joke." She turned the screen toward me. The headline was already loading before I could stop her. "Tell me they're not—"

I didn't need to see the rest. I already knew.

I nodded.

Ann didn't say a word. She just pulled me into her arms and held on so tight I felt something inside my chest give way, crack into pieces I didn't know a heart could break into. I'd spent my whole life wondering what heartbreak actually felt like. Now I knew. It felt like drowning on dry land — like my lungs had simply forgotten their one job.

"Why—" My voice broke apart before I could finish. "Why did he do this?"

I sobbed into her shoulder, my fingers curling into the back of her shirt, holding on like letting go would make it real.

"Am I not good enough?" The question came out small. Smaller than I meant it to. Like some part of me was scared of the answer.

"Hey. Time out." Ann pulled back and took my face in both hands, forcing me to look at her. "Don't you dare say that." Her eyes were dead serious, no room for argument in them.

"I'm gonna make you some hot cocoa," she said. "Can you hold it together for five minutes?"

"Yes." I nodded, even though I wasn't sure it was true.

She disappeared into the kitchen, and the second she was gone, everything I'd been holding back came pouring out at once. I stumbled to my room, dropped face-first onto the bed, and screamed into the pillow so the walls wouldn't hear me falling apart.

He said he loved me.

What did I do wrong?

I thought we were supposed to be forever.

"Forever." The word came out as a laugh — an ugly, broken sound — and I hurled the pillow across the room. It slammed into the wall and slid down behind the dresser like it was trying to hide too.

"What happened?" Ann appeared in the doorway just in time to watch its whole tragic flight.

"Here." She set a steaming mug down on my nightstand and sat beside me, her hip pressing into mine like an anchor. "Hot cocoa. Made with love and a little judgment."

I took a sip, mostly to please her.

"Just a taste?" She raised an eyebrow. I drank again, longer this time — like I hadn't realized how badly I needed something warm until it touched my mouth.

"That's my girl." She nudged my arm. "You're gonna rise out of this like a phoenix. I promise you that."

"Why—" I set the mug down too hard, and cocoa sloshed over the rim onto the wood. "Why does it have to hurt this much, Ann?"

I bit my lip and stared up at the ceiling like it owed me an explanation it wasn't going to give.

"Love was never supposed to hurt like this," I whispered.

"Hey. Look at me." Ann tilted my chin up until I had no choice but to meet her eyes.

"He's probably just a jerk," she said. "Screw him. He lost a jewel." A beat. "A pretty, expensive, irreplaceable jewel." She dragged her sleeve gently across my cheeks, wiping the mess away like it was nothing new to her. "Go take a shower. You'll feel human again, I swear." She winced. "Also — we have a quiz tomorrow. I almost forgot."

I groaned into my hands. "I'm not ready to face him. Or anyone. This is exactly why I hate social media."

"You have to go," she said, arms crossed now, done letting me sulk. "You don't get to disappear just because he decided to humiliate himself in public."

She stood and pulled me up with her.

"Say it," she said.

I just looked at her.

"Say it." She grabbed both my hands, waiting.

"...Screw him." The words cracked into a laugh halfway through — surprising even me.

"There she is." Ann grinned. "Now let's wash off this pity party. We've got a long day ahead."

---

I picked out a blue tank top and black skinny jeans — something that said I'm fine even though nothing underneath it was. I left my hair down, half-hoping it would give me somewhere to hide if I needed it. Ann had made me promise I'd walk into that quiz like nothing had happened, and I wasn't about to let her down on top of everything else.

We booked a cab and rode to campus mostly in silence, my notes open on my lap, my eyes tracing words I wasn't actually reading.

When the cab finally pulled up outside Stony Brook, it hit me all over again — I was about to face people. Face him, maybe. Face the version of myself everyone apparently already knew about, because the internet had beaten me to the truth before I'd even had time to grieve it privately.

"Hey." Ann's hand found mine and squeezed. "You've got this."

I wasn't sure I believed her. I nodded anyway.

The second I stepped through the doors, the noise thinned out. Not silence, exactly — just voices dropping into that register people use when they don't want you to know you're the topic. Eyes followed us down the hall. Ann's grip on my arm tightened, steering me forward like she could just walk me straight through it if she moved fast enough.

We found our seats and waited for the professor. My knee wouldn't stop bouncing.

"We'll be fine," I whispered, more to convince myself than her.

A guy — Adam, I think — leaned toward me. "Hey. So sorry, love. We heard what happened." I nodded without looking at him directly, because if I looked at him I was going to cry in front of the entire lecture hall.

A girl I barely recognized from freshman year turned around next. "Are you okay? Such a shame, honestly." Her voice had that syrupy softness people use right before they enjoy something a little too much. "I'm doing amazing, by the way. Thanks for asking." She smiled and turned back around before I could say a word.

I stared at the back of her head and said nothing.

I pulled out my phone instead, desperate for anything that wasn't this room. I opened my notifications, hoping for a distraction.

I got a headline instead.

Congratulations to Robert Agaya and Freya Miller on their Engagement.

"What the—" The word died in my throat. My thumb hovered over the screen, frozen, like if I just didn't scroll any further, none of it would be real.

He hadn't just left me.

He'd already built an entire life to replace me, and he hadn't waited long to do it.

He killed me. Entirely.