Chapter 16
Liz, February 29
It has now been twenty-four frustrating hours since Ben’s little “good-bye” and apparently he was serious. I’d tried email, Skype, text… nothing. I was angry, at first. I woke up sad that morning to my sad little alarm instead of a text message.
I tried calling his UK number first — the one he’d given me when he’d said “text me anytime.” It rang once, then went to voicemail. I left a short, stupid message: Ben, it’s Liz. Call me, please. No callback. I tried again an hour later; the line went straight to a robotic “user not available.”
I grabbed my phone and reread his final text message again. What was my reason for not being with Matt? I did not want my reason to be Ben. I did not want him to have that much control.
So I fired off an email, subject line: We need to talk. I wrote something normal at first, then erased it and wrote the truth—short, blunt, no theatrics. I hit send and stared at the “sent” confirmation until the screen blurred. No reply.
One last, desperate try: I opened the app we used for photos and DMs and typed him a message there — no read receipt, no little typing dot, nothing. It sat gray, unread. The silence wasn’t just silence anymore; it felt deliberate.
He left me no other choice. I was angry, I was confused. I wanted to take back control of my own life in some desperately obvious way. So I dialed another number and waited for the quiet “hello”.
“Hi Matt, it’s Liz. I was just wondering if you were free for dinner this weekend.”