Chapter 9
Time lost all meaning. I sat in the dark, curled into a tight ball on my couch, until the streetlights outside my window faded into the dull gray of a cloudy morning.
I didn’t sleep. I just... existed in a state of suspended misery, cycling through the same three thoughts: the photos, my texts, the crushing, endless silence.
My phone had remained dark and silent on the coffee table.
A monument to my shame. Every few minutes, my eyes would drag over to it, a pathetic, hopeful flutter in my chest that was immediately crushed by reality.
He wasn’t going to answer. Why would he?
I’d shown him my entire hand—a mess of jealousy, need, and unhinged anger—and he’d simply folded his and walked away from the table.
The rationalizations my brain had tried to offer in the dead of night felt hollow and stupid in the cold light of day. Maybe his phone died. Maybe he’s on a flight. Maybe... maybe he just doesn’t care.
The last one was the truth. It was the only thing that made sense. I was a distraction that had ceased to be amusing.
A sharp, sudden buzz cracked through the oppressive quiet.
I jolted so hard I nearly fell off the couch. My heart launched into my throat, a frantic, painful hammering. I stared at the phone like it was a live grenade. The screen was lit up. A notification. A text.
Unknown Number.
For a single, wild, delusional second, hope surged. Maybe he’d been busy. Maybe he was explaining now. Maybe the photos were a misunderstanding. Maybe...
With trembling, numb fingers, I lunged for the phone and swiped it open.
The message was there. Short. Devoid of any greeting or signature. No explanation. No apology.
Just cold words.
Unknown Number: It was a business meeting. Don't be dramatic.
The air left my lungs in a single, painful whoosh. It felt like I’d been checked from behind into the boards. All the air, all the fight, all the hope—just gone.
I read the words over and over until they blurred into meaningless black marks on the screen.
Don’t be dramatic.
The phrase echoed in my hollow chest. My furious, heartbroken, vulnerable texts—my pathetic attempt to claw some kind of truth from him—reduced to dramatics. He’d taken my feelings, examined them under a microscope of cold logic, and found them childish and irrelevant.
He hadn’t denied it. He hadn’t explained. He’d just... dismissed me. Put me back in my place with the efficiency of someone swatting a fly.
The phone slipped from my hand again. This time, I didn’t care where it landed.
The anger was gone. There was no fuel left to burn.
In its place was a sadness so profound it was a physical ache.
It sat heavy in my stomach, a cold stone of despair.
I felt tears well up, hot and shameful, and I didn’t even have the energy to fight them back.
They traced slow, miserable paths down my temples and into my hairline.
He’d gotten what he wanted. And I’d gotten a lesson in what happened when you forgot your place.
Practice that week was a special kind of hell. I moved through the drills like a ghost, my body going through the motions while my mind was a million miles away. My passes were soft. My shots were wide. I was slow, sluggish, a step behind every play.
“Holt! Skate!” Coach’s voice was a distant foghorn.
I tried to push harder, to use the physical exertion to burn away the numbness, but my limbs were filled with lead. All I could see was Henry’s text. Don’t be dramatic.
Shay skated up beside me during a water break, his usual grin absent. “Hey, man. You okay? You look like shit warmed over.”
“Fine,” I muttered, avoiding his eyes, pouring water over my face to hide the evidence of a sleepless night. “Just tired.”
“You sure? You’ve been quiet since the last meet up. Did something happen at dinner? With... you know.” He lowered his voice. “Emerson?”
The name was a knife twist. “No,” I lied, the word tasting like ash. “Nothing happened. It’s nothing.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he clapped me on the shoulder. “Alright. Well, if you need to talk...”
I nodded, unable to speak around the lump in my throat. I didn’t need to talk. I needed to forget. And that was clearly never going to happen.
The rest of the day was a blur. I went home. I ignored my phone. I stared at the TV without seeing it. I ordered food I didn’t eat.
The silence in my apartment was back, but it was different now. Before, it had been waiting. Now, it was final. The verdict had been delivered. It was a business meeting. Don't be dramatic.
I was alone with the knowledge that I had been a fool. That the most intense, electrifying connection I’d ever felt had been entirely one-sided. A game for him. A life-altering catastrophe for me.
As I lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, the sadness solidified into a cold, hard certainty.
It was over. Whatever it was, it was done.
Henry Emerson had made his choice. And he hadn’t chosen me.