he showed up to my baby shower like he hadn’t ghosted me.

that’s what she said when i asked how it went. no “hey, guess who came” or “you’ll never believe this” — just that. blunt. bitter. like her throat still stung from the sight of him.

she was wearing that chocolate brown bodycon dress, the one that made her bump look like a designer accessory. her nails matched her lips. she looked expensive and exhausted — like every influencer girl does at 7 months pregnant and trying to smile through a guest list full of people who only RSVP’d to be seen. the whole thing was beige and curated and beautiful. balloon arches, custom mocktails, people with cameras who called her “babe” like they’d known her forever.

and then he walked in.

drew starkey. white tee, faded jeans, like this was a barbecue in north carolina and not the most photographed baby shower in los angeles that weekend. like he hadn’t ghosted her with no explanation. no text. no “this isn’t working.” just silence.

and it wasn’t like she was chasing. she never begged. she never even posted about him. but you could see it in the vlogs from last year — the way she glowed off-camera, the guy behind the giggles when she looked up. he was in the shadows of her soft launch. and then he wasn’t.

she dated jacob elordi right after. that whole mess lasted maybe three weeks… got pregnant by him, but it blew up her platform. the internet ran wild. she went from micro fashion vlogger to full-blown who is she? status. the shade room, deuxmoi, reddit threads — everybody had an opinion. but no one knew the real story. no one knew that she’d cried on a hotel floor about a boy before elordi. not for him.

so yeah, drew showing up like this? like he belonged? it was cruel.

he didn’t say much at first. just hugged her like he hadn’t disappeared, like his arms still had permission. she froze. didn’t hug back, didn’t speak. the girls around her noticed, but they didn’t ask. they just looked at each other over their flutes of ginger ale, piecing it together in real time.

he lingered by the baby gift table for a while. there was a big wrapped box with a pale green bow — hers, from her mom. a handmade wooden bassinet from the baby’s father’s sister. tiny shoes lined up in pairs. he stared at all of it like it meant something to him, like he had a right to care.

then he said it. “do you love him?”

just like that.

not “congrats.” not “i’m sorry.” not even “how’ve you been?” just that question, low, like it hurt him to ask. she turned to look at him — not soft, not angry, just tired. like she’d already cried over him and this was all that was left.

“why do you care?” she said.

he didn’t answer. just looked at her stomach, then back at her like he was trying to map their whole history onto the present moment. like maybe, if she said no, he could fix it.

but she didn’t say anything else. someone called her name, and she walked away.

later, when she told me about it, she didn’t cry. just said, “he showed up to my baby shower like he hadn’t ghosted me.”

and honestly? that’s the most influencer-core heartbreak i’ve ever heard.

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