Radio silence?
For no reason?
No.
She couldn’t accept that.
“I just have plans with someone later, and they haven’t confirmed,” Louana said, shrugging, then quickly getting up off the mat even though every inch of her objected to the movement after too hard of a workout.
She needed to get up.
She needed to shower.
Then she needed to go to his house and make sure he was okay.
It was the only way that pit was going to stop growing, stop threatening to explode inside of her at any moment, leaving nothing in its wake.
She’d never been to his house expressly to see him.
Things were relatively new between them and she hadn’t wanted to be too public about things, given the circumstances.
But she knew where he lived.
Of course she did.
She was friends with his sister, Violet, after all.
And it was Vi who happened to answer the door, standing there in hamburger-printed pajama pants and a black tank top, holding a whole gallon of ice cream wrapped in a kitchen towl in her hand, the spoon still in her mouth as she pushed open the screen door.
“Lou, hey, what’s up? I didn’tmissthe class today. I told Layna I wasn’t coming. PMS and men do not go together. I would have strangled one of those guys today.”
“What? Oh, no. It’s not that. It was a good class, though,” Louana told her, not wanting to seem too desperate to get to the point, knowing how bad it was going to make her look.
“Okay. What is it then?”
“Well, ah, I was actually here to see Valen,” Louana admitted, voice squeaky.
“Valen?” Vi asked, brows knitting. “He left.”
“Oh. Alright. Well, ah, when he gets back, can you tell him I was looking for him?” Louana asked, already moving back a step, feeling every bit the fool for showing up, for looking so desperate for a guy’s attention.
“Wait. No. Lu… did he not call you?” she asked.
“No. That’s… that’s why I came by. I thought something was wrong maybe.”
“Lu, he left. Like town. He packed a bag and he took off on his bike. He said he wants to travel. He said he doesn’t know when he’s coming back. If he’s coming back.”
Louana didn’t really hear much after that, not through the sounds of her heart shattering in her chest.
He was gone.
He wasn’t sure if he was coming back.
And he hadn’t even said goodbye.
She was pretty sure at that moment, and the many after as she toppled into her bed, crying so hard and so uncharacteristically that her parents were scared about her well-being, that she would never get over it. Or him.
But in the weeks that followed, as grief slowly but surely transitioned to something she found more comfortable, more familiar, she knew another thing.
She was never, fuckingever, going to forgive him.