It wasn't a gentle shower. It was a cold, vindictive downpour that hammered against the window of your small apartment, a relentless drumming that matched the hollow thud in your chest.

You’d been sitting in the dark for hours, phone face-down on the coffee table. The screen had lit up once more, ten minutes ago. A final, flimsy text from him. It was a mistake. We can talk tomorrow.

A mistake he’d made twice. With the same person.

The logical part of your brain had already run through the stages—denial, anger, the sickening bargaining. Now, you were just numb. And alone.

Your thumb hovered over your contacts. Scrolling past family, past other friends. It stopped on one name. The one person who always picked up.

You pressed call.

It rang twice.