Chapter 21 – Oliver
It’s been a week.
Seven days.
Seven mornings without seeing her walk into school with her hair still damp from her shower.
Seven afternoons without her leaning against my locker, smiling at me like I’m something good.
Seven nights without her texts, her voice, her laugh.
A week feels like a year.
At first, I thought she was avoiding me — and honestly, I deserved that. But then she stopped showing up to school. Completely. No glimpses in the hallway. No quick turns around corners. No chance to even see her from a distance.
And then she called in sick from work.
Twice.
Ellie never calls in sick.
Every day that passed, the knot in my chest pulled tighter. Every hour felt heavier. Every minute felt like something was slipping further and further out of my hands.
And now I’m here — sitting in my car for ten minutes, staring at the dark windows of Ellie’s house like they might suddenly light up and save me.
They don’t.
The porch is still.
The curtains are closed.
The house feels… empty.
I knock anyway.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Nothing.
My chest tightens, that familiar pressure building behind my ribs — the one that only shows up when something is wrong. When something’s slipping through my fingers and I can’t stop it.
I check my phone again even though I already know.
No messages.
No missed calls.
No “I’m okay.”
No “I just need space.”
Nothing.
Just silence.
The kind that feels like punishment.
The kind that feels like goodbye.
I lean my forehead against the door for a second, breathing in the faint smell of her — vanilla shampoo, the detergent her dad uses, the warmth of home. I shouldn’t be here. I know that. But my feet brought me anyway.
Because I need her to know the truth.
Because I need her to know I didn’t do anything wrong.
Because I need her to know I only kept one stupid secret — one tiny, harmless secret — because I wanted to make her smile.
The bouquet.
The one I picked out with Troya’s help.
The one I wanted to give Ellie on our anniversary.
The one she never got to see.
My stomach twists.
I should’ve told her.
I should’ve said something the second she saw the text.
I should’ve explained instead of freezing like an idiot.
But I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.
I didn’t want her to think Troya mattered.
I didn’t want her to feel insecure.
I didn’t want anything except to make her happy.
And now she’s gone.
I step back from the door, swallowing hard, and force myself to walk away. The gravel crunches under my shoes, loud in the quiet night. Too loud. Like the world is reminding me I’m alone.
I get in my car, close the door, and the silence hits me again — heavier this time. I grip the steering wheel, knuckles white, and let out a breath that shakes more than I want to admit.
I didn’t lose her because I did something wrong.
I lost her because I didn’t speak fast enough.
I sit there in the car, breathing through the ache in my chest, trying to convince myself to drive away. To give her space. To respect the silence she’s giving me.
But my hands won’t move.
My heart won’t move.
So instead, I reach into the glove compartment and pull out the folded piece of paper I’ve rewritten at least six times today. The edges are soft from how many times I’ve held it. The ink is smudged in one corner where my thumb pressed too hard.
It’s the letter.
The one I wrote because I didn’t know how else to tell her everything.
I smooth it out on my knee, reading the first line again even though I have it memorized:
Ellie, I should’ve told you the truth the second you looked at me.
My throat tightens.
I wrote everything in it — everything I should’ve said when she stood in front of me with hurt in her eyes.
How Troya only helped me pick out the bouquet.
How I didn’t tell her because I wanted the surprise to be perfect.
How I froze because I panicked, not because I was guilty.
How I would never, ever do anything to hurt her.
How she means more to me than anything I’ve ever had.
I didn’t write “I love you.”
But it’s in every line anyway.
I fold the letter carefully, like it’s something fragile, and step out of the car. The night air is cold, sharp against my skin, but it wakes me up just enough to move.
I walk up to her porch again — slower this time, like each step might crack the ground beneath me. I kneel down and place the letter on the mat, right in front of the door where she’ll see it.
For a second, I just stare at it.
This stupid piece of paper that holds everything I couldn’t say out loud.
I swallow hard and whisper, “Please read it.”
Not because it’ll fix everything.
Not because she’ll forgive me.
But because she deserves to know the truth.
I stand up, take one last look at the house, and force myself to walk away. My chest feels hollow, like I left something behind — something important.
Maybe I did.
When I get back in the car, I don’t start it right away. I just sit there, staring at the porch through the windshield, hoping the door will open.
It doesn’t.
So I drive off into the quiet night, the letter sitting alone on her doorstep, carrying every word I should’ve said before she slipped through my fingers.
And as the streetlights blur past me, one thought keeps echoing in my head:
I hope she reads it.
I hope she understands.
I hope I didn’t lose her forever.