Chapter Text
Dawn stood frozen in the hallway.
Her heart pounded like it was trying to beat its way out of her ribs.
She had read Lauren’s message three times. Then again. Then once more, just to be sure she hadn’t imagined it.
“I have your journal. I didn’t mean to read it but… I did. I’m coming over.”
She wanted to throw her phone across the room and bury herself under a weighted blanket for all eternity. Instead, she stood barefoot in the hallway, staring at the front door like it might knock her down before anyone ever touched it.
The house was quiet. Too quiet.
Her mom wasn’t home. Her brother was at practice. There was no one here but her and the hum of panic under her skin.
The kind of silence that came before all hell broke out.
She walked to the mirror in the entryway. Her eyes were red. Her hair was slightly messy. Her shoulders slouched like someone carrying too much regret.
She smoothed them back. Tucked a strand behind her ear. Took a deep breath.
Another.
It didn’t help.
She paced.
Then stood still.
Then paced again.
She could picture it too clearly Lauren at the door, journal in hand. The look in her eyes. The questions behind it. The truth that had now escaped the safety of paper and ink and spilled into the real world.
Dawn wrapped her arms around herself and whispered, “Please don’t hate me.”
Not because she thought Lauren would.
But because it would be easier than Lauren saying, “Why didn’t you tell me when it still mattered?”
Then…a knock.
Not loud. Not soft. Just… there.
Like Lauren herself.
One knock.
One opportunity.
One moment.
One breath between everything before, and everything after.
Dawn stepped forward.
Her hand hovered over the doorknob.
She didn’t know if she was more afraid of Lauren still loving her or of her finally letting go
…
The door creaked open.
Lauren stood there, soaked from the rain that had just started falling. Her hoodie clung to her frame, and in her arms cradled almost gently was Dawn’s journal.
Her eyes were already red.
She looked like she had something she’d been holding in for too long.
Dawn opened her mouth to speak.
But Lauren beat her to it.
“You should’ve told me,” she said, voice cracking. “You should’ve told me when it still meant something.”
Dawn’s breath hitched. “Lauren, I-”
“No,” Lauren snapped, wiping her face even though new tears kept coming. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to write things like ‘I miss you’ in secret and pretend they don’t matter when someone else is holding your heart.”
She held up the journal, her fingers trembling.
“I read every word,” she whispered. “I read the part where you said you let me go. Where you watched me laugh with someone else and still did nothing.”
Dawn stepped forward. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I was scared that-”
“I wasn’t!” Lauren shouted. “I told you. I stood there and gave you everything I had and you just… looked away.”
Her voice broke completely then, and her knees nearly buckled.
Dawn caught her by the arm, but Lauren pulled back.
“You don’t get to want me now,” she whispered. “Not when someone else finally made me feel like I wasn’t temporary.”
Dawn’s eyes filled. “Lauren I never thought you were temporary…”
“You treated me like a phase,” Lauren said bitterly. “Like a storm that would pass.”
They stood in the doorway, the rain tapping against the wood, between them and behind them and inside them.
Dawn’s voice shook. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“But you did,” Lauren whispered.
A long silence.
Then Lauren placed the journal gently on the table beside the door.
“I’m not angry because you didn’t love me back,” she said. “I’m angry because you did, and you let it rot.”
Dawn tried to say her name.
But Lauren was already turning.
And this time…
She didn’t look back.
Moments later
She didn’t remember how she ended up on the floor.
One minute she was standing by the door, staring at the spot where Lauren had been.
The next minute she was curled up beside her bed, her journal open and unread on the nightstand, her heart folded into her chest like something fragile and breaking.
She couldn’t stop crying.
And the worst part was, she knew it wasn’t the kind of pain that had a quick fix. It wasn’t a cut or a bruise or a single sharp thing.
It was a slow ache. A regret. A thousand little silences collapsing all at once.
Her phone buzzed.
Bridgette:
Hey, Noah said you seemed off. You okay?
Dawn didn’t reply.
Two minutes later, another text.
Noah:
I’m coming over. You don’t have to talk. But I’m not leaving you alone in this.
They arrived ten minutes later. Neither of them knocked.
Bridgette wrapped Dawn in a hug the second she saw her.
Noah sat on the floor with a sigh, like he’d been expecting this moment for a long time.
No one said anything at first. Just quiet, soft space for the sobbing to happen without judgment.
When Dawn finally could speak, her voice came out cracked.
“I lost her.”
Bridgette’s hand tightened on hers. “You didn’t mean to.”
“No, but I did,” Dawn whispered. “I waited. I waited until it didn’t matter anymore. And now she’s gone.”
“She was here,” Noah said gently. “She wanted it to matter.”
“I know!” Dawn broke, chest heaving. “I kept telling myself I was protecting her. That I was confused. But I was just too cowardly. I let her love me when I didn’t know what to do with it. And when I finally did… it was too late.”
Her hands trembled as she tried to wipe her face.
Bridgette pulled a tissue from her hoodie and gently passed it over.
“I didn’t think it would hurt this much,” Dawn said. “I thought I could live with it. But seeing her walk away… it felt like the part of me that used to glow just turned off.”
Noah let out a long breath. “You waited for the perfect moment, and perfect moments don’t exist. She didn’t need perfection. She needed you.”
“I’m not sure that’s enough anymore,” Dawn said quietly.
They sat in silence after that. No advice. No comfort they didn’t mean.
Just three people on a bedroom floor, holding space for the kind of heartbreak that doesn’t come with clean answers.