“I can’t believe he still hasn’t responded!” Hannah exclaimed.

Liv, however, was not nearly as shocked.

“I hate to be the one to say it, Leila. But you just got ghosted,” she said gently.

Ghosted? I let her words sink in. Could it be? Was Zain—thoughtful, funny, sweet Zain—really the type of guy who would just disappear like that? Was he really the type of guy to fall off the face of the earth without so much as a simple explanation?

“It’s a shitty thing to do,” she continued sympathetically. “But we’ve all been there, Leila. You’ve probably even done it yourself.”

I would never be that insensitive! I reflected back on all the one-meeting dates I had been on over the past few weeks. I was always forthright when I was not interested in a second date. There were only a few instances, especially if the guy was persistent, when I would take longer to respond to texts—or I would respond less frequently—until communication eventually ceased. But I justified this strategy by telling myself that this was a far kinder way to reject a person. Besides, who wanted to hear all the reasons why a person didn’t like them? Sometimes it was just easier to not say anything . . .

“So is this Zain’s way of . . . rejecting me?” I held my breath, dreading their response. Even just hearing myself say the R-word caused my insides to ache.

“We don’t really know what it means because he hasn’t given you an explanation,” Tania said. I suddenly realized that all those unanswered texts—which I’d perceived to be a form of kindness—were just another level of ghosting. Now that I was on the receiving end, I finally understood how cruel it was for me to withhold that closure from those men, just as cruel as it was for Zain to withhold it from me.

“Maybe he’s not rejecting you. Maybe it’s just bad timing. Or maybe he really did get his phone stolen! It could be anything,” Hannah said slowly. I knew she was trying to remain optimistic, but her excuses provided me with little solace.

“Whatever it is, Leila, I think you just have to be okay with the fact that you may never know the exact reason.” Tania sighed.

I squeezed my eyes shut, swallowing the pain as the truth sank in: I had been ghosted. I had been rejected. No reason given would lessen the hurt surrounding this fact.

“Maybe I’ve been guilty of ghosting in the past too,” I said in a thin, shaky voice. “It’s just usually when you ghost a person, it’s because you know there’s absolutely no chance of it working out between the two of you. But with Zain,” I continued, trying not cry, “I don’t know . . . it was different.”

“It was for you, Leila,” Liv said softly.

“No, not just for me,” I said, the sting of her words puncturing my shattered heart. I was aware of how crazy I sounded, but I needed to make them understand. To make me understand. “He liked me! Zain, he . . . I could tell he—” My voice cracked.