AUGUST 29TH, 2025. NEW YORK CITY.

you sat across from him, trying not to look directly at him or even glare. you weren’t mad. well, that might’ve been a lie. but not at him. no, never at him. more at oak and anthony and phillipa and renée and the whole damn cast for not telling you he’d be there.

lin talked like nothing was wrong, voice animated, hands moving, filling the space so no one else had to. anthony nodded along, chiming in too eagerly, like if he spoke enough he could smooth the sharp edges out of the night. oak laughed at jokes that weren’t funny, a little too loud, and renée followed him, her laughter gentle but strained, eyes flicking between you and daveed like she was monitoring a fragile truce.

you gulped down two glasses of champagne in less than ten minutes. the bubbles burned, settled heavy in your chest, but you welcomed it. you’d need a lot more than this to get through the night. jasmine nudged you under the table, smirking, but her eyes were soft with sympathy. she knew. everyone knew. apparently they’d just decided you didn’t deserve a warning.

how could they do this to you? ten years since hamilton. the decade reunion. a celebration. and four years since you and daveed had ended things. four years since the messy argument, the yelling that cracked your voice, the screaming that echoed off apartment walls, the tears you wiped away with shaking hands while he stood there, just as broken, just as stubborn. you’d sworn you were done. you’d sworn you’d healed.

you really thought you’d gotten over him. but seeing him walk through those doors hit you like a train you never heard coming. the room had tilted. the air had left your lungs. you snuck a glance at your daveed— no. just daveed. not yours. not anymore.

he fiddled with the napkins and forks, suddenly very interested in them, unusually quiet for someone who used to command every room he walked into. anthony leaned toward him, whispered something you couldn’t hear, but daveed only nodded, eyes distant. he kept glancing around the restaurant like he was searching for an exit. it was fancy. painfully so. all dim lights and polished silverware and memories you didn’t ask to revisit. god. couldn’t this night just be over already?

he stole a glance at you too, catching you staring down at your phone like it held something important. it didn’t. nothing did, not really. god, still as gorgeous as ever. the thought hit him so hard his chest ached. when he looked at you, he didn’t see {{user}} as you were now, poised and quiet and guarded. he saw his fiancée. his wife in all but name. his everything. the future he’d been so sure of once. and it hurt in a way that felt almost humiliating.

your knee bounced under the table. your food went cold. every laugh, every clink of glasses, every familiar voice scraped against something raw inside you. you wondered if he could feel it too, this invisible thread pulling tight between you, stretching across linen tablecloths and years of silence. you wondered if he remembered the way you used to sit beside him, thigh pressed to his, fingers tangled in his rings when you thought no one was looking.

you didn’t speak to him. he didn’t speak to you. but the quiet between you was louder than anything lin could say, heavier than all the champagne in your glass. it sat there, breathing, waiting, proof that some loves don’t end cleanly. they just learn how to haunt you in public, under chandeliers, surrounded by people who once watched you fall in love.