Chapter 6: After She Left (Year 1)
Kelvin
The morning after she left, everything felt quieter. Not peaceful. Just empty.
At first, I thought maybe Anna had gone for a walk. Or back to her parents' place to sleep off the hangover, the awkwardness, the… mistake.
That's what it was, right?
A mistake.
That's what I kept telling myself. Repeating it like a prayer while I stared at the imprint she'd left on my pillow. While I noticed her necklace—a thin silver chain she used to fidget with during lectures—still lying on my nightstand. Like she'd meant to come back for it. Like she didn't know what she was doing when she left.
But days passed. And she didn't come back.
She didn't text. She didn't call. She didn't even block me which would've at least been something. A sign that she was angry. That she regretted it. That I wasn't the only one struggling to breathe.
Instead, she just disappeared.
No one knew anything.
My mom said she'd changed majors and left campus.
Josh—God, Josh—he didn't even blink. Thought she'd just burned out and needed space. Said she always got in her head too much.
He had no idea she'd spent the night in my bed. In my arms. That she had kissed me like she was starving, like I was the one she'd been waiting for all along.
And the worst part?
For a moment, I believed her.
I let myself think she chose me.
I let myself imagine what it could mean. Her fingers in my hair. Her whispered yes. The way she curled into me like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I didn't sleep for three days.
I kept hoping it was a misunderstanding—that maybe she was just scared, embarrassed, unsure. That maybe she was still figuring out how to tell Josh the truth, and that we'd talk after the dust settled.
But a week passed. Then two.
And the silence became its own kind of answer.
I stopped going home for Sunday dinners.
I stopped replying to texts that asked about her.
And when people brought her up casually—Haven't seen Anna in a while…—I just shrugged like it didn't feel like something inside me had broken.
I needed a distraction.
So I applied for a transfer. Moved to Boston. Took a junior analyst position with a firm that didn't care who I'd once been or who I'd lost. They only wanted results.
And I gave them results.
I worked harder than anyone. Stayed late. Came in early. I buried myself in spreadsheets and case reports and quarterly earnings. Because numbers made sense. They didn't lie. They didn't leave.
I stopped thinking about her—until something would slip through.
A girl in a bookstore who laughed just like her. A drink menu that listed cinnamon whiskey. The way the city smelled after a late October rain.
Everything brought her back.
I hated it.
But I never stopped chasing the version of myself I thought she might've stayed for the version that was worth being loved first, not by mistake.
So I smiled when people said I was going places. I let the ambition swallow me whole.
Because if I kept moving fast enough, maybe I'd outrun the night that changed everything.
Maybe I'd forget how it felt to have the woman I loved choose me…
…and then disappear like it never happened.