The Collision
notification glowing back at me like a small, deliberate crack in whatever wall he'd been keeping up since the breakup.
I sat cross-legged on my bed that evening, scrolling through old photos I told myself I wasn't looking at on purpose, stopping on one from over a year ago, Jace and me at some team banquet, both of us laughing at something I couldn't even remember anymore. Back then things had felt so easy, so certain, before everything had fallen apart between us and he'd moved on to someone who apparently made him feel things I never quite managed to reach.
Bri walked in from the bathroom, toweling her hair dry, immediately catching the particular way I was hunched over my phone. "You're