You’ve been pacing back and forth in his apartment for the last fifteen minutes, heart racing, phone clutched tightly in your hand. Every time you glance at the screen, the same photo stares back at you — Joshua, grinning with his friends, drinks in hand, lit by warm string lights and the kind of carefree joy you haven’t seen from him in a while.

Except… you were supposed to be with him tonight.

He had promised. Dinner, just the two of you — after weeks of being too busy, too tired, too distracted. It was supposed to be your night. You got dressed up. You waited. You checked your messages again and again.

And then he texted.

“Sorry, can’t make it tonight. Something came up.”

And now here he is — not sick, not stuck at practice, not caught in a last-minute meeting — but laughing at a party, with the same people he swore he didn’t have time for.

You hear the door open behind you. He’s back.

Joshua steps in, kicking off his shoes casually like nothing is wrong, like you aren’t standing there on the verge of breaking. He looks up and freezes when he sees your expression.

“Hey,” he says carefully, “you okay?”

You glare at him, voice sharp. “You said we’d go out this weekend. You promised.”

His brows knit. “I know, I—something came up—”

You cut him off, shoving the phone toward him. “This came up?”