I should have said something, but the words I needed to speak were trapped in my throat, refusing to come out.

Sydney was trying to play it tough, but I knew better.

She was waiting for me to fight for her.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” I sighed, not even recognizing my own voice anymore. It sounded tired. Defeated. Maybe even cold.

“You never do. It’s like you’re not even here half the time.” She stepped closer, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “You don’t care that I hooked up with Ethan last week, do you?”

Ethan. The guy who sat behind me in school, always bragging about his dad’s yacht and the ski trips they took every winter.

Part of me wanted to feel something. Anything. Anger, hurt, disgust, betrayal. But when I looked at her, when I listened to her voice crack with that last sentence, all I could muster was a dull ache in my chest, like a bruise that had long since faded.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Do you want me to care?”

Her hands curled into fists, and her voice rose, trembling with frustration. “Are you sleeping with someone else?”

“No.”

“Then what?” she pressed, louder this time. “What is it, Blake? Why do you look at me like I’m a stranger?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just⁠—”

I just can’t force something that isn’t there.

I just can’t stop loving someone else.

“You just what?” she demanded. “You just stopped caring? You just woke up one day and decided I wasn’t worth it?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?” She was begging now. “Because I’m running out of ways to convince myself that this isn’t all in my head.”

I looked at her then—really looked at her.

Sydney was pretty. And she deserved better than the half-hearted scraps I’d been giving her. She deserved someone who could say I’m yours and mean it with every fiber of their being. Someone who could look at her the way I looked at Beverly.

How do you tell someone you don’t love them—not because they are unworthy of love or haven’t tried hard enough, but because someone else has already taken that place in your heart? How do you shape something so cruel into words that won’t leave scars behind?

You could say I’m sorry, but apologies won’t change the way your heart beats for someone else. You could say you deserve better, but that won’t soften the sharp edges of rejection.

“Sydney,” I said softly, stretching out her name as if it might somehow buy me more time, more courage. “You’re my⁠—”

“Don’t say it, Blake.” Her voice was sharp, but her eyes were pleading. “Don’t you dare say ‘friend’. Not tonight.”