When I finally made it over to Endgame’s room, I opened the door, and he was passed out on the bed. People had been in his room as well because there were more bottles here and some drug paraphernalia. He needed to go. It was that simple. No matter what he told me about his intentions after he left my apartment, or what he would do to self-sabotage, it was time to set boundaries. As soon as he was coherent, it was happening.

Taylor rubbed between my shoulder blades. “Come on, let’s go to bed. We’ll deal with this another time.” She was great. We didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with this right now. We had too much on our plates.

As Taylor picked up a few stray bottles, she froze. I came over to see what she was looking at. “This is Roberta‘s. Roberta has been here.”

“Are you sure?” I bent down to grab the lanyard with pins all over it.

“Yup. She used to lose it all the time when I lived with her. The clip here cuts loose because she has all these pins on it. It’s too heavy.” She grabbed a spoon off of Endgame’s chair and used it to lift the lanyard.

The way she was treating it made me reconsider picking it up.

“The upper part had her dorm key so she will still be able to get in tonight. If she had been a friend, I would’ve gotten her a better lanyard.” She let the lanyard swing back and set the spoon down.

“I hate to do this. Let’s sweep this place, make sure everyone’s out, and then I need some time with him.”

Taylor leaned over to me and kissed my cheek. “I got it. No worries. You just let me know if you need help.”

After making sure every closet and room was clear, Taylor and I were relieved to find out no one had gotten into our room.

I tried to let my heart harden before I went into Endgame’s room. It was time.

His hands were behind his head. “Were you awake the whole time we were here? Was it all an act?” I leaned against his doorframe.

“You know I felt the shift this weekend. That you’re done with me.” He licked his teeth like the words needed moisture.

It would start now—the mind games. He was fantastic at them. And maybe I was a sucker for them as well.

“Yeah, it wasn’t just this weekend, though. So you know, I mean, you’re in a separate bedroom and it’s been this way for a while. I’ve been trying to put up boundaries and somehow you always break them down.” I pushed the clothes off the chair in his room and sat down. “You and I both know that this was never gonna last forever.”