1
Annie
I knew my relationship was over when I found out before he told me.
It wasn't because he’d cheated, at least not in the physical sense that makes for a clean, explosive break. It wasn’t because the love had suddenly evaporated into thin air. It was far more insidious than that. I knew it was over because when I walked through the front door of the Miller’s house, I was the only person in the room who didn’t know I was single.
There’s a specific, visceral brand of humiliation reserved for the girl who walks into a party with a smile on her face, unaware that she’s already a ghost story. People don’t look at you; they look *through* you, or worse, they look at you with that sickening, head-tilted pity that says they’ve already read the final page of your life while you’re still stuck in the middle of a chapter.
I felt it the second I stepped onto the hardwood. The air in the foyer was thick with the scent of cheap vodka and expensive perfume, the bass from the speakers vibrating in my marrow.
“Annie…”
Mia’s voice was the first red flag. It wasn’t her usual upbeat, "let’s-get-trashed" greeting. It was careful. Measured. It was the voice you use when you’re approaching a wounded animal that might bite if you move too fast.
“Hey,” I said, trying to shake off the sudden chill. “Where is everyone? Where’s Ethan?”
Mia didn’t answer right away. She bit her lip, her eyes darting toward the kitchen island where two girls I vaguely recognized from my Lit seminar had stopped talking the moment I appeared. They weren’t even subtle about it; their eyes flicked past me toward the floor-to-ceiling glass sliders that led to the back patio.
They were waiting for the collision.
“Annie, wait,” Mia said, reaching for my arm, but I was already moving.
I didn't need a map. My stomach had already done the math. I walked toward the glass, my boots clicking a death march against the tile. Through the pane, under the soft, amber glow of the string lights, I saw him.
Ethan.
My boyfriend. Or the man I had spent two years believing was mine.
He was standing by the stone fire pit, his back to the house. He wasn't alone. He was leaned in close to a girl with long, dark hair that caught the light—someone I didn’t know. His hand was planted firmly on her waist, his thumb hooked into the belt loop of her jeans. It wasn't a casual touch. It wasn't the way you hold a friend while telling a joke. It was proprietary. It was familiar. It was the way he used to hold me before he started "staying late at the library" every night for the last month.
My chest didn’t cave in. There was no dramatic shattering of my heart. Instead, everything inside me just… tightened. It was a cold, sharp, clinical finality. Like a door locking from the inside.
“Oh my God,” Mia muttered behind me, her breath hot on my shoulder. “Do you want me to go out there? I’ll deck him. I’ll actually ruin his life, Annie.”
“No.” My voice was unnervingly steady. I felt like I was watching a movie of myself. “I’ve got it.”
I didn't know if I had it. I just knew I couldn't stand on this side of the glass for one more second being the girl everyone was whispering about.
I pushed the sliding door open.
The humidity of the night hit me, a stark contrast to the air conditioning, and the muffled thump of the music outside was replaced by a sharp, rhythmic pulse. Someone near the pool let out a drunken, braying laugh. Ethan didn't notice me. He was too busy smiling down at the girl like she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever encountered.
The ease of it—the sheer, effortless comfort he had with this stranger—that was the part that stung. It shouldn't have been that easy to replace a thousand nights of history.
“Ethan.”
His name felt like a jagged piece of glass in my throat.
He froze. I watched the muscles in his back go rigid, his hand dropping from the girl's waist like he’d been burned. The girl turned first. She looked surprised, then wary, her gaze sweeping over my face and landing on the heartbreak I was trying so hard to hide.
Then Ethan turned.
The guilt was there, written in the frantic way his eyes searched for an exit that didn't exist. He looked like a man who had been caught stealing, and for a split second, I hated him more than I had ever loved him.
“Annie,” he said. He took a half-step toward me, then stopped, as if realizing that distance was his only defense. “I was going to tell you. I was going to call you tonight.”
I let out a sound that was supposed to be a laugh, but it came out more like a sob that I strangled halfway through. “Were you? Before or after you started dating her? Because it looks like you skipped a few steps in the 'how to break up' manual, Ethan.”
“I’m not— we’re not—” He glanced at the girl, looking for backup, but she just snorted and crossed her arms, looking entirely unimpressed by his fumbling.
“What *is* it like, then?” I asked, stepping closer into the circle of light. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re publicly auditioning my replacement at a party where everyone knows my name.”
“Things have been off between us for a while, Annie. You know that,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, trying to regain some semblance of control.
“Off?” I echoed, the anger finally starting to bubble through the ice. “'Off' is an argument about where to go for dinner. 'Off' is a boring Tuesday. 'Off' is not lining up a new girl while you’re still sleeping in my bed and telling me you love me on your way out the door.”
“You’re making a scene,” he hissed, glancing nervously at the guests watching from the patio.
That was the breaking point. The absurdity of it hit me—the man who had just dismantled my dignity in front of forty people was worried about a *scene*.
“I’m making a scene?” I laughed then, a sharp, unhinged sound that made Ethan flinch. “I’m not the one who decided to trade up in public. You want a scene, Ethan? I could give you a fucking scene. I could tell everyone exactly how much of a coward you are. But I think you’re doing a pretty good job of showing them yourself.”
“Can we please talk about this somewhere else?” he pleaded.
“No,” I said firmly. “I know exactly how that conversation goes. You’ll use soft words. You’ll talk about 'growing apart.' You’ll try to make this sound mutual and mature so you can go to sleep tonight feeling like a 'good guy.' But this isn’t clean. It’s messy, and it’s pathetic, and I’m not helping you carry the weight of it.”
The girl moved awkwardly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I honestly didn’t know you guys were still together,” she said, her voice quiet.
I looked at her—really looked at her. She was beautiful, but there was no smugness there. Just a deep, uncomfortable pity. It was the final blow. I didn't want her pity. I didn't want his excuses.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice cracking just slightly. “We were.”
The silence that followed was heavy, filled only by the distant sound of the party and the crickets in the grass. Ethan looked like he wanted to reach out, to offer some final, useless platitude. But I saw him clearly now—stripped of the nostalgia and the shared jokes. He was just a boy who didn't know how to be alone.
And in that moment, the realization landed. Hard, but steady. I didn't want him back. I didn't want to fix it. I just wanted to be gone.
“Congratulations, Ethan,” I said, forcing a small, jagged smile that felt like it was tearing my face apart. “You’re free now. Go ahead and be someone else’s problem.”
I turned on my heel before he could say another word. I didn't wait for him to follow me. I didn't want to see if he looked sad. I just walked.
The music crashed back over me as I stepped inside, the heat and the noise feeling like a physical assault. It was too much—too bright, too loud, too many eyes.
Mia was there in an instant, grabbing my hands. “Oh my God, Annie. Are you okay? We can leave. We can go right now.”
“I’m fantastic,” I said, the adrenaline starting to spike, masking the hollow ache in my gut. “Thriving, actually. Never been better.”
Mia winced, her grip tightening. “That bad?”
“Worse. I need a drink. A large one. Now.”
I didn't wait for her to agree. I walked to the kitchen, grabbed a red solo cup filled with something clear and smelling of juniper, and downed half of it in one long, burning swallow. It scorched my throat and brought tears to my eyes.
Good. I wanted to feel the burn. It was better than the numbness.
“What are you going to do?” Mia asked, her voice hushed as she leaned against the counter next to me.
I didn't think about it. I didn't spiral into a cycle of "why" or "how." I just felt something snap—a leash I hadn't realized I was wearing for two years.
“I’m rebounding,” I said.
Mia blinked, her jaw dropping. “You hate rebounds. You literally spent forty minutes last week explaining to Sarah why a rebound is just a band-aid on a bullet wound.”
“Correct.”
“And you give speeches about the importance of 'sitting with your feelings' and 'emotional processing.'”
“Also correct.”
“And you once said—”
“I know what I said, Mia!” I grabbed her shoulders, a reckless, wild spark dancing under my skin. I felt electric, like I was wired to a live outlet. “But here’s the thing. Tonight, I don’t want to process. I don’t want to sit with my feelings. I don’t want to feel *anything* that has to do with Ethan.”
Her eyes widened, seeing the shift in me. “Oh no. Annie, you have that look.”
“Oh yes.”
I turned, scanning the room. I looked at the sweaty bodies dancing, the guys hovering by the keg, the dark corners of the living room. I looked at all the potential bad decisions, all the beautiful, temporary distractions just waiting to happen.
For the first time since I’d walked through that door, the weight in my chest lifted, replaced by something sharp, dangerous, and intoxicating.
It felt like freedom.
I leaned in close to Mia, a predatory smile tugging at my lips.
“Find me someone terrible,” I said. “And find them now.”
