Eli didn’t cry when he deleted Dominic’s number.
His thumb hovered for a second longer than it should have, maybe waiting for a reason to stop, maybe hoping a text would come through and save him from himself.
But it didn’t.
He pressed down, watched the screen blink, and just like that, Dominic was gone.
At least, from the phone.
The silence afterward was too loud. Eli threw the phone across the bed and sat there, motionless. It wasn’t impulsive. It was an attempt at control—one last shred of power in a relationship that had never been equal.
But six hours later, his hand hovered over the bedspread, phone cradled in his palm, now he felt more empty.
He didn’t even remember Dominic’s number. It had lived in his favorites for so long, he’d never had the need to memorize it. And now it was gone, like none of it ever mattered.
Eli stopped going into the office.
At first, he lied to his father that he would be working from home—claims of remote meetings that didn’t exist. His father
