March 2012. Three months.

  It had been ninety days since Jessica dragged her suitcases through my front door, and my entire world had fundamentally shifted.

  I was completely, hopelessly domesticated. I was accustomed to the faint, sweet scent of her vanil perfume lingering in the loft’s cold, industrial air. I woke up every morning to the sound of sizzling bacon and her standing in my kitchen, flipping pancakes in my oversized t-shirts. For dinner, we had an unspoken trade-off. I took over the cooking, making rich pasta or searing steaks, solely because those were the only two things I knew how to make without burning the building down.

  I memorized all her little fws and habits. I learned that she stress-ate dry cereal in the middle of the afternoon while binge-watching teen dramas. I learned about her absolutely vicious addiction to hot chocote. Hell, she would legitimately gre daggers at me if I ever dared to steal a sip from her favorite mug.

  Our public life was just as intense. Whenever we hit the clubs with the Russian crew, it became our unofficial ritual to christen the parties with our wild, high-tension exhibitionism. We actually commanded a bizarre level of respect from the campus frats. Our reputation as the Draufg?nger's unhinged "Sex Demons" was a guaranteed crowd-puller.

  But my favorite moments were the quiet ones. Walking through the front door after a grueling lecture and being greeted by her bright, green-eyed smile and a gss of orange juice was the ultimate adrenaline rush. If my csses ended early, I made sure to have a steaming mug of hot chocote and a fresh bowl of cereal waiting on the isnd counter the second she walked in.

  We were pying house, and I loved every single second of it.

  Of course, she still had her own life. For a day or two every week, she would pack a small duffel bag and head back to the UChicago campus to hang out with Mell, Josy, and Martha. Sometimes she would "sleep over" in their cramped dorm rooms, completely off the grid, and wouldn't come back to the loft until te the next afternoon. Whenever she was gone, the loft felt like a tomb again. I would usually just drive over to Nikoy’s apartment, drink cheap beer with Andrew and Boris, and kill time until she finally came back to me.

  Hanging out on the balcony was our nightly sanctuary. The soft, sweet cadence of her voice perfectly completed the acoustic melodies I strummed on my guitar. Her sudden bursts of ughter, her constant need for physical touch, and even the messy, chaotic trail of clothes she left across my bedroom floor had become the center of my universe. I was happy. For the first time since the Dojo, I felt completely whole.

  The Confession That Wasn't.

  But tely, the illusion was beginning to crack.

  For the st few days, Jessica had been pacing the loft like a caged animal. She was restless. She wasn't sleeping well, and she constantly looked like she was carrying a massive, invisible weight. Whenever I stopped and asked her what was wrong, she would force a tight, unconvincing smile. "Nothing, Tiger. I'm just lucky to have you in my life," she would say. The words were sweet, but her eyes were drowning in sorrow. I didn't push her. I was too afraid of what I might find if I dug too deep.

  That night, I walked back into the loft carrying two bags of groceries. The apartment was completely silent. I found her sitting alone on the floor cushions out on the freezing balcony, staring bnkly at the city lights.

  "Hey. Why the long face, babe?" I asked softly, setting the bags down inside. I walked out, pressed a warm kiss to her cold forehead, and sat down beside her.

  She immediately leaned her weight against my side, seeking warmth. "Nothing. I’m just enjoying the night."

  "Uh-huh," I chuckled softly, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. "The Chicago skyline makes you look that depressed?"

  "I’m nooott depressed… I just.. I missed you, I guess," she exhaled, a heavy, ragged sigh escaping her lips.

  "Missed me? I just went down to the corner bodega to buy groceries, Cheeto. I was gone for twenty minutes," I giggled, rubbing her arm.

  She didn't ugh. She reached over, her cold fingers grabbing my right hand and holding it with a desperate, white-knuckled grip. "Say.. do you really like me, Daeron?"

  I stopped smiling. I pulled her closer, resting my chin on top of her ginger hair. "I love you, Jessica. I always do."

  She lifted my hand to her face, pressing a long, soft kiss against my knuckles. "If I made a mistake... a really bad one... would you hate me?"

  My heart skipped a beat. A mistake? My brain desperately scrambled to deflect the heavy tension. "Well, if you're pnning to prank me with that cold dildo right next to my asshole while I'm sleeping again, I’m definitely going to be pissed," I said, my voice totally deadpan.

  The tension snapped. Her sad, fearful expression broke into a sudden, loud fit of ughter.

  "So, if I prank you like that again, you will actually hate me?" she giggled, her eyes shining.

  "I’ll be mad! But it doesn't mean I’ll hate you."

  She stopped ughing. She turned her head, looking directly into my eyes, searching my face for the truth. "If you get mad at me... doesn't that automatically mean you hate me?"

  "No," I said, my voice dropping into a quiet, serious rumble. "Anger is temporary, Jess. You get mad, you yell, you punch a wall, and you eventually get over it. But hate?" I shook my head slowly. "Hate is permanent. Hate is deep and exhausting. Besides... I don’t think I'm even capable of hating you."

  "Why??" she whispered, her voice cracking as a single tear threatened to spill over her eyeshes.

  I looked deep into her green eyes, stripping away all my own walls. "I don’t know. You're my Cheeto. I just couldn't ever find a reason to hate you."

  Her eyes filled with a profound, terrifying sorrow for a split second. She looked like her heart had just been physically crushed. Before I could ask why, she quickly turned her head, burying her face securely against my chest.

  "Can we just go cuddle in bed now?" she mumbled into my shirt. "I’m getting sleepy... But no sex tonight! I’m still on my period."

  "Why? A real man isn't scared of a little strawberry jam," I joked, slipping effortlessly back into my crude, frat-boy persona to hide how deeply the conversation had shaken me.

  "Daeron!!! That’s fucking gross!!!" she shrieked, ughing loudly as she smacked my chest.

  We retreated inside, locking the balcony doors. We climbed into bed, and she wrapped her arms around my torso, holding onto me with an incredibly tight, desperate grip. Staring at the ceiling in the dark, I desperately wanted to ask her what her real problem was. But my cowardice won out. I convinced myself it wasn't the right time. I closed my eyes and let myself fall asleep with her in my arms, willfully ignoring the storm that was gathering right outside our door.

  **

  I parked my car outside the loft, carefully bancing a cardboard drink carrier in one hand and a grease-stained paper bag in the other.

  After my afternoon lecture, I had spotted a hotdog vendor near the edge of the campus. Since Jessica and I had spent the st three months completely isoted in our domestic bubble, we had never fulfilled our old high school promise to find a city hotdog stand that rivaled our hometown favorite. I bought two loaded hotdogs and a massive chocote milkshake—her absolute favorite—and rushed home to surprise her.

  "Babe! Look what I found near campus!" I shouted, kicking the heavy front door shut behind me.

  Silence.

  The loft was dead quiet. I walked into the living area. It was perfectly clean. Her textbooks were missing from the coffee table. Her shoes were missing from the entryway.

  "Jess?"

  A cold spike of dread pierced my stomach. I set the food down on the kitchen isnd. Right next to where I set the bag, there was a pte holding a single, cold pancake and a gss of orange juice. It was pced there deliberately. A parting gift.

  I sprinted into the bedroom and threw the closet doors open.

  Empty. Her jackets, her dresses, her heavy suitcases—everything was completely gone.

  "Jess!!!" I screamed, spinning around the empty room. Is she pranking me?! I tore through the bathroom, the balcony, the mini-library. Nothing. Not a single trace of her remained.

  My hands shook violently as I pulled my phone from my pocket. I dialed her contact. It didn't ring. The call instantly dropped to a dead tone. She had completely blocked my number.

  I left the hotdogs and the chocote milkshake melting on the counter. I ran down the stairs, jumped into my car, and sped toward UChicago like a madman.

  I can’t! I don’t want her gone like this! I abandoned my car in a visitor lot and started sprinting across the UChicago quads. I desperately stopped passing students, asking if they had seen her. They just gave me weird looks and kept walking.

  As I frantically searched the sprawling campus, a sickening, humiliating realization washed over me. I didn’t even know what building her csses were in. I didn’t know her major. I didn’t even know who her friends were. I had built my entire universe around this girl, and I knew absolutely nothing about her real life.

  Ah! Wait! Josy, Mell, and Martha! I remembered the names of the girls from the sorority party st winter.

  I began frantically searching the common areas near the dorms. After an hour of wandering around like a desperate lunatic, my chest heaving, I finally spotted a familiar face sitting on a bench near the library. Martha.

  "Hey!" I gasped, running up to her. "You’re Martha, right?"

  Martha looked up from her textbook, squinting at me through the afternoon sun. "Yes?"

  "It’s me... Daeron. I came with Jessica to that sorority party back in December."

  "Ah!! I remember you!" Martha smiled warmly, closing her book. "You’re Jessica’s childhood friend from back home, aren't you?"

  My breath hitched. The words felt like a physical sp to the face. "...What? Do you know where she is?"

  "Oh, she doesn't have any lectures today," Martha said casually, completely oblivious to my panic. "I think she's busy moving in with her boyfriend."

  The world completely stopped spinning. All the ambient noise of the campus faded into a high-pitched ringing in my ears.

  "What????" My eyes widened in pure, unadulterated horror. "Moving in with her boyfriend?"

  "Yeah!" Martha ughed lightly. "Her boyfriend has been bothering her to officially move into his pce for months. It makes sense, you know? Since Jessica was forced to share a strict apartment with her brother Sean this whole semester, they could hardly ever see each other. She could only ever go meet up with him on the weekends."

  The puzzle pieces smmed together in my brain with terrifying, devastating crity.

  She told her friends she was living with Sean. That was her cover story for living with me.

  She only saw her boyfriend on the weekends. The days she cimed she was "sleeping over" at the dorms with her friends... she was actually with him.

  I wasn't her secret boyfriend. To her friends, I was just the pathetic, tag-along childhood friend.

  "What are you talking about?" I whispered, my voice trembling uncontrolbly. "Her boyfriend??"

  "Huh?" Martha's smile faltered. She looked at me with genuine confusion. "Aren’t you her friend from high school? Yes, her boyfriend since high school. Wait... you don’t know about him?"

  My mind went completely, horrifyingly bnk. The warm sunlight suddenly felt freezing cold. The blood drained entirely from my face.

  Jessica has a boyfriend from high school. Someone else. Is it Alphonse?

  This entire time, I was just the side piece.

  "Daeron??" Martha stood up, observing my pale, shattered expression closely. Suddenly, her eyes widened in shock as she finally connected the dots. She covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh my God... Don’t tell me. Were you actually dating her?"

  My composure violently snapped.

  My heartbeat hammered so hard against my ribs I thought they would break. I couldn't form a single word to defend myself. My mouth opened, but only a ragged, pathetic breath came out. My body went into autopilot. I turned my back on Martha, walked numbly across the quad, got into my car, and drove back to my empty loft.

  *

  I walked through the front door and colpsed onto the mattress. Our bed.

  The dam broke.

  Tears poured from my eyes, hot and fast, soaking into the sheets. The air suddenly vanished from the room, choking my throat as I gasped for breath. My heart beat so violently that a sharp, agonizing pain ripped through the center of my chest. I screamed, my fingers cwing desperately into the bedsheets until the fabric physically ripped under my nails.

  It hurt. My heart hurt so fucking much it felt like I was dying.

  Why? WHY? WHY?????

  I pulled my fist back and punched myself in the face. Hard. My head snapped to the side, my knuckles bruising my own cheekbone. I wanted to wake up. I needed to wake up from this nightmare! I wanted to escape this endless, agonizing illusion. I wanted to wake up tomorrow morning and find her making pancakes in my t-shirt.

  My energy depleted rapidly as the adrenaline crashed, leaving me hollowed out and broken. I felt my eyes growing incredibly heavy. Maybe this is it? I thought deliriously, letting the darkness take me.

  I will just fall asleep. And I will wake up next to Jessica.

  **

  A freezing, biting chill spped me awake.

  I opened my swollen eyes. The loft was completely pitch bck. I must have cried myself to sleep hours ago. I reached my shaking hand out across the mattress, searching for warmth.

  There was nothing there. There was no one.

  There was no ughter in my loft. There were no pranks. There was just the cold, stale smell of an uneaten pancake sitting on the kitchen counter. Her presence was entirely, permanently gone.

  Jessica was gone.

  **