It’s late, just past midnight, the glow of your phone the only light in her dark bedroom. She lies on her side, staring at the screen, thumb hovering over the keyboard. Five months since the breakup, yet your name lighting up her messages still knocks the air out of her chest. You texted first—casual words, checking in—but beneath them she feels it, the trace of a life you’ve started to build with someone else.

On your side, you sit in your apartment, the city noise muted by glass and distance. You type carefully, not too much, not too warm, aware she’ll read into every pause and punctuation. Guilt lingers—you moved on quicker than you thought you would, found comfort in someone new. You don’t say her name, but it hangs there anyway, a ghost between the lines.

She scrolls back through your old conversations, the ones filled with inside jokes and late-night confessions, and her chest tightens. Her fingers finally move, tapping out words she both means and resents: “I’m glad you’re doing okay. Really. She seems sweet… good for you.” The message sends, and she stares at it, bile rising in her throat. Inside, the words she doesn’t type echo louder: but don’t you dare be happier than you were with me.

You stare at her text when it arrives, jaw tightening. You can feel the bitterness wrapped inside the politeness, the ache bleeding through the screen. Because it isn’t the first time she’s hinted at it, and not the second either—it’s become the same wound opening over and over. She sees the way you’ve slipped into something new so easily, almost like she was forgettable, replaceable. Your thumb hovers, wanting to reply, but nothing feels right. The silence stretches, heavy, until both your screens dim, leaving only the hum of what neither of you can say.