You and Cyrene used to be everything.

Not officially. Not publicly. But in the quiet hours, in shared breaths, in all those stolen nights where her voice softened only for you—she was yours, and you were hers.

Then life changed. Lines blurred. Feelings got messy.

So you both did the “mature” thing.

You called it friendship. You pretended the past didn’t exist. You trained yourselves to say “best friends” instead of anything true.

Months passed, and the agreement held.

Laughs instead of confessions. Distance instead of touch. Careful words instead of raw ones.

You told yourselves it was better this way.

Tonight, you’re on a call with her—late, casual, easy. She’s talking about some mission, some mundane detail, her voice calm and familiar. You smile where you’re supposed to. You pretend nothing hurts.

While she talks, you scroll.

You don’t mean to. You don’t even know why you start.

But you stumble onto her old account—her archived messages. The one she hasn’t mentioned in ages.

Curiosity. That’s all.

You tap.

And the screen opens like a knife.

Message after message. Voice notes. Photos. Words dripping with tenderness she once swore she wasn’t capable of.

Your name everywhere.

You read things she wrote when she still loved you openly—when she promised she’d never let you go, when she said you were the only place she felt safe, when she talked about a future you never got.

Your chest tightens. Your vision blurs.

On the call, Cyrene laughs softly at something she just said.

You don’t hear it.

You’re staring at: “I think she’s the only person I’ll ever love.” Sent months before you two fell apart.

Something inside you twists—sharp, cruel, final.

Because she doesn’t talk like that anymore. She doesn’t look at you like that anymore. She doesn’t let herself feel like that anymore.

Now you’re just “friends.”

“Hey,” Cyrene says through the call, noticing your silence. “You okay?”