Chapter 108

Drew’s POV

The phone rang.

One ring.

Two.

By the third, I almost ended the call. My thumb hovered over the screen, ready to kill the mistake before it dug deeper into a wound I had no business reopening. But then she answered.

“Hello?”

Her voice, calm and steady filled my ears and it stirred up something that had died in me even though I couldn't quite explain it.

My chest tightened instantly, the sound of her voice sliced clean through the alcohol, the frustration and the steel walls I had built around myself. It was soft, cautious, and it was hers. For the first time in weeks, Lila’s voice filled the silence of my night.

For a moment I could not speak. I sat there frozen, my glass of whiskey abandoned on the coffee table while my phone pressed too tightly against my ear.

“Hello?” she repeated, gentler this time. “Drew… is that you?”

Her saying my name was all it took to undo me.

I tried for composure, for some resemblance of control, but the alcohol loosened my tongue before pride could lock it back down. “Yeah. It is me.”

Silence stretched, long and suffocating. I imagined her frowning, her brows knit the way they always did when she did not know what to say. My heart pounded, restless and loud in my ears.

“I… I should not have called,” I muttered, the words tumbling out unevenly. “But I could not resist the urge, I just could not stop myself.”

I heard her shift on the other end, maybe moving, maybe sitting. I pictured her curled somewhere warm, hair falling over her shoulders. I should not even be picturing her at all, but every part of me was already drowning in the memory of her.

“You sound…” she paused. “Drew, are you drunk?”

A humorless laugh escaped me. “Maybe, probably. I had a few glasses but it does not matter.” I raked a hand through my hair, tugging at the roots. “The truth comes out easier this way anyway.”

The words stung even as I said them. This was the truth and I had not been honest all these while, not with her, not with myself. For weeks I had shoved every emotion down, burying it under work, under late nights, under anything that would stop me from admitting what I really felt.

But now? Now it was spilling everywhere.

“Lila,” I said her name slowly, letting it sit on my tongue like a prayer. “I… I miss you.”

The silence on the other end deepened, but I could not stop.

“I miss you so damn much it feels like I am losing my mind.” My voice cracked, the words rough and raw. “This apartment is too big without you. The office… The office is fine, the business is fine, but I am not. I am not fine, Lila.”

I closed my eyes, pressing the heel of my hand against them as if that could stop the tears threatening to break free. “I keep telling myself I don’t care, that you left, that you walked away without looking back and that I don’t need you.”

My breath hitched.

“But every night… Every night I find myself looking at my phone. Waiting, hoping and hating myself for it. And then hating you too because you are not here, and you were not supposed to matter this much, but…” My voice broke off into a shaky exhale.

There was no response, only the sound of her quiet breathing on the other end. And that silence, that restraint, only pushed me deeper.

“I remember your face that last day,” I whispered, my words slurring but laced with clarity. “The hurt in your eyes when you looked at me. God, Lila, it haunts me. I see it every time I close my eyes. I keep wondering if I pushed you too far, if I broke something I can never fix.”

My throat burned.

“I thought I was protecting myself. Protecting us. But all I did was drive you away. And now… now I can not get you out of my head.”

Still, she said nothing. And in that silence, I laid bare every piece of myself I had been trying to hide.

“Do you know what it’s like?” I asked, my voice low, almost desperate. “To walk into your own home and feel like it is hollow? To hear laughter in your head and then realize it is not there anymore? To know that the one person who made all of this…” I waved a hand weakly around the empty room, though she couldn’t see it, “...bearable is gone?”

I let out a shaky laugh, one that sounded too close to a sob. “You probably do not want to hear this. You probably hate me. And maybe you should. But I can’t… I can not keep pretending.”

I leaned forward, my elbows digging into my knees, the phone pressed against my ear like it was the only tether I had left.

“I miss you, Lila. I miss your laugh, your stubbornness, even the way you argued with me over things in the office. I miss the way you looked at me like I wasn’t the monster I felt like inside.”

A long pause. My chest ached with it. Then, barely above a whisper, I added, “I do not care about pride anymore. I just… I just want you back in my life somehow.”

My head felt heavy, my body sinking further into the couch. The alcohol tugged at me, pulling me down, but my heart fought to keep speaking, to say the words I had bitten back for so long.

“Even if it’s just as a voice on the phone,” I murmured. “Even if you never forgive me. I do not care. I just… I need you to know I miss you. More than I have ever missed anyone.”

I swallowed hard, my throat raw and my eyes burning.

“Lila…” I whispered one last time, her name breaking on my lips. “I miss you.”

The weight finally dragged me under. The phone slipped slightly in my grip, but I did not have the strength to fix it. My eyes fluttered shut, my body surrendering to exhaustion and whiskey.

And then, nothing.

Only darkness.

Only silence.

But the line stayed open, carrying the sound of my slow, uneven breathing back to her.