He stared at the cracked pavement between them, the silence stretching longer than the apology she never got.

“I thought…” he began, but the words dissolved.

She crossed her arms, the wind tugging at the hem of her coat like it wanted her to leave too. “You thought it would be fine. That I’d wait. That I’d rearrange myself around your maybe.”

He winced. “It wasn’t like that.”

“No?” Her voice was soft now, dangerous. “Then tell me what it was like. Tell me how forgetting my birthday, ghosting me for three weeks, and showing up tonight with a half-eaten sandwich counts as effort.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. The sandwich sagged in its wrapper like it knew it wasn’t helping.

She turned toward the streetlight, its flicker casting a halo around her defiance. “You didn’t think about anything,” she repeated, but this time it wasn’t a sigh—it was a spell. A severing.

And just like that, the maybe became a no.

He didn’t follow her right away. The sandwich, now a symbol of his half-effort, hung limp in his hand. She walked toward the curb, each step deliberate, like she was reclaiming the ground beneath her.

“Wait,” he said, finally catching up. “I didn’t mean for it to be like this.”

She turned, eyes sharp. “You didn’t mean for it to be anything. That’s the problem.”

The streetlight buzzed overhead, casting a flickering glow on the space between them. He looked at her—really looked—and saw the constellation of all the times she’d shown up, held space, made magic out of crumbs. And all the times he’d mistaken her glow for convenience.

“I read your scroll,” he said quietly.

Her breath caught. “And?”

“I didn’t know how to respond.”

She tilted her head. “So you brought a sandwich?”

He almost laughed, but her face held no trace of humor. “I panicked. I wanted to show up with something. I thought maybe… food was safe.”

She softened, just a fraction. “Food is sacred. But not when it’s a placeholder for presence.”

He nodded. “You’re right.”

She stepped closer, not closing the distance, but acknowledging it. “You don’t get to skip the ache. You don’t get to bypass the reckoning with a snack.”

He looked down at the sandwich, then back at her. “Can I try again? Not with food. With truth.”

She considered. “You can try. But this time, you name the ache first.”

He swallowed hard, unsure of the answer she was looking for. His shoulders sagged. “I like him. And honestly, I forgot you and I had that conversation.”

She blinked, then said, her voice barely a whisper, “How could you forget?”

He looked up, eyes wide, like the question had cracked something open. “I don’t know,” he said, but it wasn’t defensive—it was raw. “I think I was so caught up in the newness, the rush, the way he made me feel seen… I didn’t think about what I was stepping over to get there.”

She nodded slowly, the ache blooming behind her ribs. “You stepped over me.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“But you did.”

The silence between them wasn’t empty—it was crowded. With the memory of that night on the fire escape, her knees tucked under his hoodie, the way she’d named her ache and he’d promised to hold it. With the ritual card she’d made—‘If you fall for someone else, tell me before I find out sideways.’ He’d laughed then, called her dramatic. But she’d meant it. And now here they were, in the sideways.

“I liked you too,” she said, voice steady now. “But I don’t chase people who forget me.”

He stepped forward, instinctively, but she held up a hand. “No. You don’t get to fix this with proximity.”

He stopped. “What do I do?”

She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a folded card. The edges were worn, the ink smudged. She handed it to him.

It read:

“This is the cost of forgetting.

If you want to stay, you name the ache.

If you want to go, you own the silence.”

He looked up, tears threatening. “Can I name it now?”

She nodded. “But this time, you don’t get to skip the ritual.”

He paused only for a moment, glancing down for aa split second, then returned her gaze. “I broke your heart and I didn’t even know it, or mean to.”

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t soften. Just stood there, letting the words settle like dust on a windowsill—undisturbed, but undeniable.

“That’s the thing,” she said, voice low. “You didn’t mean to. But I still had to sweep up the pieces.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. There was no defense that wouldn’t sound like deflection. No apology that could rewind the ache.

“I kept showing up,” she continued, “with cards and comics and spells. I turned my longing into language. You turned yours into silence.”

He blinked, the weight of her truth pressing against his chest. “I didn’t know how to hold it.”

She stepped closer, not to comfort, but to clarify. “You didn’t have to hold all of it. You just had to notice it. To name it. To say, ‘I see you glowing, and I don’t want to dim that.’”

He nodded slowly, eyes glistening. “I see it now.”

She tilted her head. “Do you? Or do you just see the fallout?”

He swallowed. “Both.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out another card—this one newer, edges crisp. She handed it to him.

It read:

“Recognition is not redemption.

If you want to rebuild, you start with ritual.

If you want to leave, you do it with clarity.”

He held it like a relic. “Can I stay?”

She looked at him, long and steady. “You can stay if you’re willing to co-create. No more half-efforts. No more drive-by intimacy. We build the ritual together.”