rey

he slats of the blinds. My eyes were raw, bloodshot,

d to the world, letting o

My eyes locked onto the black p

ess. My fingertips were ice cold when they br

keypad appeared, demand

hdate. The screen s

first anniversary. The day he had bought me a

ick

hadn't even bothered to change the password that tied us

app and typed *Carolina

ed. The chat history stretc

bracelet. I saw a screenshot of a three-person group chat with Jeanie, disc

d out my old, cracked phone. My hands were sh

screen, snapping clear, focused photos of every

heavy arm flopping blindly onto the empty s

power button on his phone, plunging the screen i

oherent into his pillow and

phone back on the exact spot on the nig

ilently out of the master bedroom

k against the cheap wood and gasped for air, like

ce of my humiliation. The sharp pain in my chest

room. I grabbed the edge of a dust-cov

with my bare hands. Inside lay a

tudent in my business program. I gave it all up to manage Kieran's hou

yer of dust off the top cover. The ro

ns were filled with my dense, meticulous

t. The ambition I had buried ali

very single book. I stacked them n

d in the URL for the offic

king on the screen. I moved the cursor ove

to get my