“Ryan?” Trina answers, her cheerful voice coming through the speaker pressed to my ear. “It’s been a while. How are you?”

“Was Scarlett back? Is she back?” I don’t even try to keep the desperation out of my voice. Even if she didn’t call me, if I can just find her…

“Not that I know of,” she says cautiously. “Why?”

My heart drops to the bottom of my chest. “I’m outside her condo. It’s for sale.”

Trina curses quietly. I hear muffled voices behind her, then a scraping noise as she covers the phone and says something, then it’s quiet again. “Oh, Ryan. I’m so sorry. I swear I haven’t heard from her. I would tell you if I had. I know how you felt about her.”

“Feel,” I grind out, trying desperately to hold back angry tears. “How I feel about her.”

There’s silence for a moment before she sighs. “You didn’t ask for my advice, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. It’s been a year, Ryan. I know it’s hard. I’m hurting, too. I lost a friend, and I know that’s not the same, but…it sucks, okay? Still…if I were you, I’d try to move on. If Scarlett wanted to be found, we’d have found her, you know?”

I like to consider myself a rational, adult man. But there is nothing rational for me when it comes to Scarlett. My love for her is so deep and so ferocious that it has only grown in her absence. Giving up on the idea of her coming back to me is unfathomable.

The tears burst free then. I crumple forward, curling into myself as if I can wrap my body around my heart and protect it. The noises escaping me sound inhuman, even to my ears. The desire to punch something rises so violently within me, but there’s nothing around but concrete and steel. I can’t imagine what Trina is hearing over the phone, but she waits it out. I don’t even know how long I kneel there, crying.

“I know,” she croons when my sobs have subsided. “I fucking know. God, this is awful.” She sniffles as if she’s crying, too. “Do you need me to come get you?”

I wipe my nose with the back of my hand and take a trembling breath. “No. I think I’m going to walk. Clear my head.”

“Okay. It was good to hear from you, Ryan. Call me if you need me, okay?”

“Sure,” I say before hanging up.