I scroll through the messages with hands that won't stop shaking.
They span three days, the tone shifting from casual to urgent to desperate—a chronicle of something falling apart while I was trapped on a mountain with no way to know.
Day 1: Hey, can we talk? Something's happening and I need to see you.
Day 1, evening: Called again. Still no answer. I know you probably don't have service but this is important.
Day 2: Gordon, please call me. It's important. Meet me at our spot tonight.
Day 2, midnight: I waited for two hours. I know you're not ignoring me on purpose. I know something must be wrong with your phone. But I need you. Please.
Day 3: I don't know if you're getting these. I don't know if you're okay. Please just let me know you're alive.
Day 3, later: Everything is falling apart. I don't know what to do. I needed you here and you weren't and I don't blame you but I don't know how to fix this alone.
Day 4: I'm so sorry. I didn't have a choice. I'm so, so sorry.
The last message sits on my screen like an accusation. I didn't have a choice. The words repeat in my head, each repetition spawning new interpretations, new fears.
Didn't have a choice about what? What happened in those four days that was so urgent, so unfixable, so final that it warranted an apology before I even knew what I was being apologized for?
I hit the call before I can think myself out of it.
The phone rings once, twice, three times.
My heart hammers against my ribs with each unanswered tone, and I'm already catastrophizing—he's not picking up, he's changed his mind, he's with her right now and doesn't want to talk to me…
"Gordon?"
Simon's voice cuts through the spiral. He sounds wrecked—rough with exhaustion, raw with something that might be grief or relief or both.
"Gordon, you're okay. Thank God you're okay. I thought… When you didn't answer for days, I thought something happened to you. I thought maybe the storm, or an accident, or…"
"I'm okay." My voice comes out thin, strangled. "The storm knocked out the roads. I was trapped at the cabin with no signal. I just got home, I just saw your messages, I…" I stop, force myself to breathe. "Simon, what happened? What didn't you have a choice about?"
Silence—the kind of silence that stretches and distorts, that fills itself with all the worst possibilities. I can hear Simon breathing on the other end—shallow, unsteady, the breath of someone trying to hold themselves together.
"Can you meet me?" His voice cracks on the question. "At the spot? I need to tell you in person. I can't… I can't do this over the phone."
"I'm already grabbing my keys."
I'm out the door before he finishes responding, before he can change his mind, before the silence can stretch any longer. The morning is gray and cold, the aftermath of the storm still lingering in puddles and scattered debris.
I don't notice any of it. I'm already in my car, already pulling out of the parking lot, already driving toward answers I'm not sure I want.
The drive takes twenty minutes. It feels like twenty years.
Every red light is an eternity. Every slow driver is an obstacle designed specifically to torment me. I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles ache, run through possibilities in my head like shuffling a deck of cards.
Maybe it's the gym—maybe they lost everything, maybe his parents had to declare bankruptcy, maybe the stress broke something that can't be fixed.
Maybe it's Naomi—maybe her father made an offer Simon couldn't refuse, maybe she demanded something in return, maybe…
I can't finish that thought. I can't let myself imagine what Simon might have traded to save his family.
Our spot is ugly by design.
A parking lot behind an abandoned warehouse on the industrial edge of town. No streetlights except one flickering fixture that buzzes and dies every few minutes. No reason for anyone to be here, which is exactly why we chose it.
In the weeks since we started this thing, this secret, this relationship, this whatever-it-is, we've met here a dozen times. Parked side by side in the darkness, talked for hours, touched each other in ways we couldn't anywhere else.
Now the lot feels different, exposed, like whatever's about to happen will leave marks on the concrete.
I arrive first. Park, get out, pace beside my car with my phone clutched in my hand. Check the screen every thirty seconds like Simon might text that he changed his mind, that he's not coming, that whatever he needs to say can stay unsaid forever.
The flickering streetlight casts everything in stuttering orange, shadows jumping with each electrical surge.
Ten minutes pass. Fifteen. Then headlights sweep across the lot, and Simon's truck pulls in.
He parks beside me—the familiar arrangement, the ritual of it—but he doesn't get out right away. I watch his silhouette through the windshield, see his head drop forward like he's gathering strength, see his hands grip and release the steering wheel.
Finally, the door opens, Simon gets out slowly. Every movement looks like it costs him something—energy, courage, pieces of himself he can't afford to lose. The streetlight catches his face as he turns toward me, and my stomach drops.
He looks destroyed—pale in a way that has nothing to do with the lighting. Drawn, like he hasn't slept in days, like something has been eating him from the inside out.
His eyes are red-rimmed, bloodshot, the eyes of someone who's been crying and trying to hide it. He moves toward me like a man walking to his own execution.
"Simon." His name comes out broken. "What happened? What's wrong?"
He doesn't answer, just keeps walking until he's standing in front of me, close enough to touch, close enough that I can see the tremor in his hands as he reaches for mine.
That's when I see it—on his left hand, catching the flickering light, a band of silver that wasn't there four days ago.
A ring. An engagement ring.
The world tilts sideways, sound disappears. Everything narrows to that small circle of metal wrapped around Simon's finger—a promise, a claim, a declaration that belongs to someone else.
"Gordon." Simon's voice sounds like it's coming from very far away. "It’s much more complicated than it looks. You have to believe me.."
But I can't hear him. Can't process anything except the ring, the ring, the ring on his finger that means he's engaged, that means he's chosen, that means while I was trapped on a mountain with no signal, Naomi Chen won.
"You proposed to her." The words come out hollow. Not a question. An accusation. A death sentence. "While I was gone. You proposed to Naomi."
Simon's face crumbles. "I didn't have a choice."
"Everyone has a choice." My voice rises, cracking at the edges. "You had a choice, Simon. You could have waited for me, you could have called, you could have—"
"I tried to call you!" His shout echoes off the warehouse walls. "I called you fifty times! I texted you every hour! You were gone, Gordon, you were just gone, and everything was falling apart, and I didn't know what else to do!"
We stare at each other across the impossible distance of three feet and one silver ring.
The streetlight flickers and dies, plunging us into darkness.
And I don't know how to find my way back.
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