The Floating Comments Showed Me His Real Feelings Chapter 04
Something inside me went dead.
I didn’t need the comments to tell me this time. He was taking that bracelet to her.
He wasn’t keeping me around because he cared. He just needed me to play my part in their story a little longer.
It didn’t matter. We only had one semester left until graduation anyway, and everyone knows graduation is just breakup season with a diploma.
The movers showed up right on time.
My parents had always warned me not to build my life around a boy. My brother said the exact same thing: never let a guy dictate your future.
The second I told them I was leaving Callum, they booked a premium moving service and had a studio apartment near campus lined up by morning.
One hour. Everything I owned was packed and gone without a trace.
I stood in the middle of the apartment, stunned at how fast it all disappeared.
The place we’d shared, stripped down to bare walls and his things. I wasn’t expecting it to hurt.
The crew lead noticed me staring and smiled.
“Don’t worry, hon. We do breakup moves all the time,” she said sympathetically. “We’re pros. If it’s yours, it’s coming with you, every last thing. If it’s his, we don’t touch it. After today, he won’t have a single excuse to come knocking.”
I nodded blankly.
A text came through from Tessa Langley, my academic advisor. The spring study abroad program had been confirmed.
It was everything I’d wanted before Callum. Somewhere along the way, I’d let those plans fade.
[Maren is DEFINITELY gonna turn it down. Like she could ever leave a guy that hot to go overseas?? She’d rather die.]
[Honestly, I hope she stays. I wanna see how badly this ends for her lol!]
…
The frustration was suffocating.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you pass on it now, it won’t come around again. Just think about it.”
Tessa slid the paperwork across the café table, nudging a pastry toward me.
That’s when the commotion started. A crowd had gathered across the quad, and there, right in the middle of it, were Callum and Sienna.
They were hugging. The crowd around them was going wild.
Nolan, Callum’s best friend, stood near the edge of the crowd, bragging loudly enough for half the quad to hear.
“I always said Callum and Sienna were the real thing. Maren was just a placeholder.”
Then he turned and saw me. His face froze.
Behind him, Sienna, still wrapped around Callum, caught my eye. And smiled.
One eyebrow lifted. Smug. Deliberate. She knew exactly what she was doing.
“Isn’t that your…” Tessa trailed off, her eyes darting between me and the crowd.
I grabbed her arm and got out of there before anyone else could see my face.
When my hands stopped shaking, I picked up the pen and signed the study abroad paperwork.
Back at my new apartment, I blocked Callum on everything.
I spent the next two days buried in prep for the trip, anything to keep from thinking.
By the time Callum got through to me, I was already at the airport.
He’d called from Nolan’s phone. I knew it was him the second I saw the name. I picked up anyway.
“Where are you? I’m coming to find you.”
His voice hit me like a wall. Everything I’d been choking down for two days surged straight up into my throat, and I had maybe ten seconds before I fell apart in the middle of the terminal.
“Callum, I saw you with her that day. I know it’s always been her.”
“I won’t get in your way, and I won’t trash-talk you to anyone. Don’t worry. You’ll never have to see me again.”
I hung up. And for the first time in days, I could breathe.
The boarding gate was open.
…
Callum stood in the empty apartment, staring at the blocked contact screen. He staggered back, his knees hitting the hardwood as a raw, gut-wrenching sound ripped from his throat.
“Why?”
Another woman? What other woman? And what did she mean, never again?
Maren had a temper. He knew that. But she didn’t do things like this on impulse.
Something had happened.
He pulled up the apartment’s security cameras.
