Day one, I text him once.
Just his name and a question mark, because I don't know what else to say after the way he walked out. The message shows delivered, then read, and I stare at the screen for an hour waiting for the three dots that never appear. By midnight, I've accepted that he's not going to respond—that I broke something between us that can't be fixed with a single text.
Day two, I go to his apartment.
I knock for five minutes before the neighbor pokes her head out, annoyed, and tells me she hasn't seen him since yesterday morning. The spare key is still under the mat where he always keeps it, and I let myself in even though every instinct screams that I shouldn't. The apartment is empty—no note on the counter, no message on the fridge, just silence and the faint smell of his cologne lingering in the air like a ghost.
Panic sets in slowly, then all at once. I check every room, every surface, looking for some sign of where he went or when he's coming back. His suitcase is gone from the closet, his phone charger missing from the nightstand, and the realization hits me like ice water—he didn't just leave for air. He left.
Day three, I run into Vance at the athletic office.
I'm there to file end-of-season paperwork, burying myself in logistics because it's the only thing keeping me from completely falling apart. Vance corners me in the hallway, his polished composure cracked, something almost frantic in his eyes.
"Have you talked to Ethan?" His voice is sharp, accusatory.
"No." My stomach drops at his expression. "Why? What's going on?"
"Because he's in Seattle." Vance starts pacing, running his hands through his perfectly styled hair. "Meeting with teams, touring facilities, talking to coaches—without consulting me. I'm his agent, Harper. He's making decisions about his career without me."
Seattle. The word echoes in my skull, hollow and devastating.
"And apparently without telling his girlfriend either," Vance continues, oblivious to the way my world is crumbling. "Do you have any idea what's going on with him? He's been radio silent for three days."
I don't answer because I can't—my throat has closed up, my chest tight with a grief I thought I'd already survived once. He's in Seattle. Already there, already making choices, already building a future that doesn't include me. Without a word, without a goodbye, without giving me a chance to explain or apologize or beg him to stay.
Just like before.
Day four, I call him directly for the first time.
The phone rings four times before going to voicemail, his recorded voice cheerful and casual in a way that makes my chest ache. I hang up without leaving a message, then call again an hour later with the same result. I text him three times—once asking if he's okay, once apologizing for everything, once just saying please.
Nothing. No response, no acknowledgment, just silence stretching between us like the three thousand miles he's already put in place.
Day five, Monica stages an intervention.
She shows up at my apartment with wine and Thai food, takes one look at my face, and pulls me into a hug that lasts longer than any hug should. We end up on my couch, me crying into my pad thai, her rubbing my back and making soothing sounds.
"Stop spiraling," she says finally, her voice firm but kind. "Call him again."
"What's the point?" I wipe my face with the back of my hand, mascara smearing everywhere. "He left, Monica. Just like before."
"It's not like before." She grabs my shoulders, forcing me to look at her. "Before, he made the choice to leave without giving you any say. This time, you literally told him he could go—you told him to make his decision without feeling guilty about you."
"I gave him the truth." My voice cracks on the word. "I told him about the baby, about the clinic, about everything I've been hiding for three years. And he couldn't handle it."
"Or maybe he's processing." Monica's eyes soften. "That's a lot to take in, Harper. You had three years to live with it—he's had three days."
"If he was just processing, he would have called." I pull away from her grip, wrapping my arms around myself. "He would have texted, or left a note, or something. He just disappeared."
Monica doesn't have an answer for that, and the silence between us says everything.
After she leaves, I do something I've been avoiding since day one. I go back to his apartment, this time with an empty box, and start collecting the things he left at my place. His gray hoodie that I've been sleeping in since our first night together. The dog-eared paperback he was halfway through, bookmark still marking his page. A phone charger, a toothbrush, a pair of socks that somehow migrated into my laundry.
Small pieces of a life I thought we were building, reduced to objects that fit in a single cardboard box.
I'm crying before I finish, tears dripping onto his hoodie as I fold it carefully. The fabric still smells like him—that mixture of cologne and laundry detergent and something underneath that's just Ethan. I press it to my face and let myself sob, alone in his empty apartment, surrounded by the ghost of everything we almost had.
Day six, still nothing.
I wake up with swollen eyes and a hollow chest, the kind of emptiness that comes from crying until there's nothing left. My phone sits silent on the nightstand, no missed calls, no texts, no sign that he's even thinking about me while he's off in Seattle building his future.
I make coffee I don't drink and toast I don't eat, then sit at my laptop and do something I swore I'd never do again. I start looking at job postings in other cities—Chicago, Boston, Miami. Anywhere that isn't here, anywhere that doesn't remind me of him, anywhere I can start over without the weight of this heartbreak crushing my chest.
Sports management positions in cities I've never visited, for teams I've never followed, building a career in places where no one knows my name or my history or the boy I loved twice and lost twice.
Rebuilding. Again.
The job listings blur together on my screen, words and requirements and application deadlines that feel meaningless compared to the ache in my chest. I should be angry—at him for leaving, at myself for telling the truth, at the universe for giving us a second chance just to rip it away.
But I'm not angry. I'm just tired.
Tired of loving someone who keeps walking away. Tired of building walls and watching them crumble. Tired of being strong when all I want to do is break.
I close the laptop without applying to anything, curl up on my couch with his hoodie pressed to my chest, and let myself feel it all—the grief, the loss, the devastating certainty that I've lost him for good this time.
My phone stays silent. The apartment stays empty. And I start to accept that maybe this is how our story ends—not with a fight or a farewell, but with silence and distance and all the words we never got to say.