Chapter 4

I wanted to run across the street and scream at him. I wanted to ask him if he' d been with her last night when he called me, pretending to be worried. I wanted to shatter that perfect, happy picture.

But I stayed frozen, my feet rooted to the pavement. I was afraid of the answer. I was afraid of the final, painful truth that I was just a chapter he had already closed.

The sight of them walking away, his arm now draped casually around her shoulders, felt like a physical weight pressing down on me. It was a slow, crushing descent.

I turned to leave, my mind a complete blank. I wasn't looking where I was going. I stepped off the curb right into the path of a cyclist.

"Hey, watch it!" he yelled, swerving to avoid me.

I stumbled backward, my ankle twisting, and fell hard onto the concrete. A sharp pain shot up my leg. I looked down and saw my knee was scraped and bleeding, my jeans torn.

But the physical pain felt distant, muffled. It was nothing compared to the hollow ache in my chest. I just sat there on the dirty sidewalk, oblivious to the people staring.

"You need some help with that?"

A sleazy voice broke through my haze. I looked up to see a man in a cheap suit leaning over me, a predatory glint in his eye. "A pretty girl like you shouldn't be sitting on the ground."

"I' m fine," I said, my voice flat.

"Come on, let me buy you a drink. It' ll make you feel better," he insisted, reaching a hand out to me.

Before I could tell him to get lost, another voice cut in, sharp and authoritative. "She said she' s fine."

It was Ethan. He was standing there, his face a mask of concern. Sarah was nowhere in sight. The guy in the suit mumbled an apology and scurried away.

Ethan knelt beside me. "Ava? Are you okay? What happened?"

My gaze flickered past him, down the street where he and Sarah had been walking. He must have sent her on her way and come back for me. A small, pathetic spark of hope flickered inside me. Maybe he did care, just a little.

"What have you been doing?" he asked, his voice softer now. "You disappear from the bar, you don' t answer my calls. Liam hangs up on me. I' ve been worried."

The words felt rehearsed, transactional. We were no longer 'Ava and Ethan' . We were two separate people, and I was the one who had become distant. It was so absurd I almost laughed.

"We need to talk, Ava," he continued, helping me to my feet. I winced as I put weight on my ankle. "I miss my best friend. Can we please just go back to how things were?"

That was it. That was the line. All the pain and confusion and anger of the last two days coalesced into a single, sharp point of clarity.

"No," I said, my voice shaking but firm. I pulled my arm from his grasp.

He looked shocked, like the thought of me saying no had never occurred to him. "What do you mean, no?"

"We can' t go back, Ethan," I said, the words tumbling out. "Because it was never just a friendship for me. I was in love with you. For years. And you want to pretend none of that happened? You want me to just flip a switch and go back to being your convenient, supportive sidekick while you go kiss other women on the street? I can' t do that."

The color drained from his face. He finally had the decency to look ashamed.

"I knew," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper. "I mean, I suspected. I saw the drawing."

Of course he knew. Confirmation didn' t make it any less painful.

"Then why?" I asked, my voice breaking. "Why did you let it go on for so long?"

He looked away, staring at the traffic passing by. "Because I was scared, Ava. You' re... you. You' re the most constant thing in my life. I was terrified that if we tried... if we tried and it didn' t work, I' d lose you completely. I couldn' t risk that."

He was explaining his reasoning, laying out the pros and cons as if our entire relationship was one of his architectural blueprints. He was weighing the risk to himself.

"And what about my risk?" I asked, my voice quiet. "Did you ever think that maybe I was scared, too? That I was risking my heart every single day just by being around you?"

He had no answer for that. He just stood there, looking lost.

For the first time, I saw him not as the charming, ambitious man I had idolized, but as a coward. He was so afraid of potential loss that he had preemptively chosen a smaller, more manageable version of it, sacrificing any chance of something real to preserve a comfortable status quo.

And in that moment, I understood. We were both afraid. But he had made a choice for both of us, a long time ago.

A strange sense of calm washed over me. The anger was gone, replaced by a deep, hollow sadness for the years I had wasted, for the love I had given to someone who was too afraid to accept it.

I let out a long breath. "It' s over, Ethan. It really is."

I leaned against the wall, the pain in my ankle finally registering. "Can you... as a friend... give me a ride home?" I asked, the word 'friend' tasting like ash in my mouth.

He looked relieved, eager to slip back into a role he understood. "Of course. Anything."

He helped me into his car, the familiar leather seats a stark reminder of all the times we had driven together, talking and laughing. But this time, the silence between us was heavy and final.

As he drove, I stared out the window at the passing city. The love I had carried for him for so long felt like a heavy coat I had finally taken off. I was cold and exposed, but I was also free. It was gone. It was really, truly gone.