Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
God, who writes this crap?
She laughed. It was a pity laugh but in guy world it was still a reaction—a positive one of encouragement to move to the next step and with that confirmation, my stomach sank lower.
“Okay, but only for a little bit,” she said. “Try to be quiet—Ezra has company. I’m proud of him for stepping out of his shell.”
Like I was some pet turtle finally showing my face.
The guy snorted. “Ezra? That name sounds familiar…”
A pause.
Then—
“Oh shit. Ezra Park? The dude with all the hair and the weird-ass Eighties glasses?”
He cackled.
And she didn’t correct him.
She didn’t say that guy’s my best friend.
She didn’t say he’s the smartest person I know.
She didn’t say he made me dinner because I was too lazy to make it myself.
She didn’t say he’s the one who holds me when I cry and tells me every tear has meaning.
I didn’t yell. Didn’t storm out. Didn’t say it was for her.
I just… laid back down. I was quiet about it. Pathetically. Dejectedly quiet.
I picked up the nearly forgotten coffee cup and cleaned up the mess, needing something to do to distract myself from remembering, from feeling. I mentally closed the book that I knew better enough to open. And stared at the ceiling like it might hold the answers to why I was always two inches from being seen—and never enough to be chosen.
A burning started in my chest and before I could think through my actions, I was unlocking my phone and typing out a text.
I stare at the message. Don’t send it. Don’t—
Too late. It’s gone.
My reflection stares back at me from the dark screen of my phone, layered with light from her TikTok page still playing on loop. Her voice, her laugh, her chaos—all on display.
Would she even recognize me if I changed?
If I cut the hair, ditched the glasses, changed the walk, the tone, and the posture?
Would she see her best friend showing up to save her?
Or would she only see Ezra Wyatt Park—the guy she defends in public but forgets in private, the one always just offscreen, holding the camera and dying for her smiles?
It’s a stupid idea.
Which is exactly why it might work.
Because I’m not known for being stupid.
I’m known for being calculating.
So why not give her what she wants?
The most viral story of all time.
A perfect ex… curated by the one she’s never truly seen.
Me.
Fuck it.
Clark Kent just decided to go full Superman.
May the comic gods be with me.
I think I’ll regret the text I sent, but I finish the day and go to sleep. Maybe I’ll regret the choice in the morning. I don’t. Instead I hyper fixate on everything. It’s been twenty-four hours since I offered to become someone I’m not.
Or maybe someone I always was—just buried under layers of hair, sarcasm, and a giant assed safety net.
Still no plan. No haircut. No reveal. Just me… refreshing her page like it might give me permission to be that guy, the other guy, not the one who lays back down on the ground and stares at the ceiling while someone else gets the girl, but the one who jumps up and shouts at the world that he has her.
My phone buzzes.
Harper
Emergency. Need you. Plz bring caffeine and your soul. I have nothing to give you, nothing left. Thy cup is empty. Thy is me. FILL ME UP YO.
That’s followed by seventeen skull emojis, a photo of a broken zipper, and what might be a crying selfie or a very aggressive sneeze.
I’m already grabbing my keys and smiling at her innuendo of filling her up. See? I’m the upstanding guy that doesn’t respond with something crass—doesn’t mean however, that my thoughts don’t get dirty really fast, now more than ever, I’m thinking I can do it and better than anyone else can.
She meets me at the door of her apartment a black dress and emotional ruin—-her words.
“The zipper betrayed me,” she said, arms pinned behind her like she’s been arrested by her own outfit and found guilty. “I think it was the boobs. It’s always the boobs.”
I managed a slow blink. “Um hi.” I shook my head at the boobs in question. “Stop constricting them, you’re hurting their feelings.”
“Stop staring at them.”
“Kind of hard not to and I’m not gay, sorry to disappoint, you have boobs, I have eyes, it’s simple math which by the way I’m remarkable at. It’s probably the seventh, you start in five days which means you’re bloated.” I cringed at my own words because that’s exactly what a gay best friend or girlfriend would say, I may as well have chopped off my own dick and asked where the Eunuchs stayed watch over the Kingdom.
“I haven’t eaten,” she continued ignoring my comment and spinning on her heel. She marched back inside, bypassing the tables and heading directly to the handicap bathroom. “I didn’t sleep. My hair is too shiny, which feels fake. And if I have to listen to one more audio about manifesting your dream relationship, I’m going to manifest a fist through my phone and choke the next person out who says ‘hi’ too nicely. I know this is just a practice round to get the video feed right for when everyone votes on my TikTok page, but…it feels too real and if this is the amount of stress I have for the practice date…” She took a shuddering breath.