Page 63 of Vicious Intentions
“Anna,” she whispers, grabbing my wrist to stop me from leaving. “Is everything okay? Honestly? You know you can always talk to me, right?”
Not about this. If I tell her that I’m pretty sure I’m slipping into a bout of depression, she’ll raise the alarm and get every last member of our family involved. That would only worry them, and I don’t have the heart to do that. Not when everyone is supposed to be enjoying the honeymoon phase of their marriages.
“I’m fine, Stella. Really. I’m just going to grab some air. That’s all.”
She stares at me for a while before releasing her grip on me.
“Okay. But don’t take too long. You still have loads of presents to open.”
I nod and slip away, excusing myself from my own party under the guise of needing air. Aside from Stella, no one questions it. They never do.
I pull on my coat and step outside, the cold biting at my skin the moment the door closes behind me. The backyard is quiet, the remnants of winter still clinging stubbornly to the earth. Patches of snow linger in the shadows, ice melting slowlybeneath the weak warmth of early spring. My breath fogs as I walk, my shoes crunching softly against damp grass.
The woods wait at the edge of the property as if taunting me. Like they have been for the last few months.
I hesitate for only a moment before heading toward them, my heart picking up its pace with every step. The trees swallow the sound, the party noise fading until it feels as if it belonged to another world entirely.
I move deeper between the trees, my eyes scanning the familiar path. My fingers curl into my sleeves, the cold forgotten beneath the anticipation humming through me.
I shouldn’t be nervous. I’ve done this before. More than once. But tonight feels different because it’s the first birthday in years that I don’t get to see Raffaele. He won’t be coming this year. Or any year hereafter. He made his feelings about me perfectly clear.
I stop when I arrive at our spot. As I take in the emptiness of it all, I brush my fingers against the musical note of my pendant, still hanging around my neck. I then pull out my phone and reread Raffaele’s last words to me.
You overanalyze everything and it’s honestly kind of sad.
Not everything needs to be talked to death. It’s not that deep.
I’ve got enough going on without playing therapist.
Besides, you’re not that special. You were just there.
You’re nice and all, Anna, but you’re painfully boring.
Talking to you feels like a chore. I’m done pretending otherwise.
The last sentence in particular broke my heart. I never thought Raffaele was capable of such cruelty. If I hadn’t known any better, I might have sworn the text was sent from a stranger. But it wasn’t. Those were Raffaele’s words. His mannerisms, his way of saying things. It was all him.
I always knew breakups were hard, but I never realized that breaking up with a friend could be just as devastating. It feels like the world has suddenly stopped making sense around me. Everything feels so… wrong.
What could I have possibly said or done for Raffaele to treat me this way? To turn on me so viciously? Then I think about the last time he came to see me, and how I reacted when he kissed me. Could that have been the cause of his sudden disinterest?
Did I fabricate our friendship in my mind? Was I so blind and hungry for genuine companionship that I failed to see the writing on the wall? That maybe Raffaele had feelings for me beyond the platonic ones I had for him? And that when I didn’t return his affections like he wanted, he lost all interest in pursuing our friendship.
When I list all the reasons he could have gone to such lengths to hurt me, that one sits at the top.
Maybe I’d been naive all along. Perhaps none of it was real. And that, right there, is the saddest part of all. Because I miss my friend. I miss him terribly.
Since he basically ended our friendship with a text, I refused to sink to his level and text him back with a reply. However, now that I’m at our spot, I’m not that strong. Hot tears begin to stream down my face, as I go back to our messages and start typing everything out. I tell him how cruel he’s being. How much of an idiot I feel for ever trusting him. But as the words spill out faster and faster, my vision blurs, and I switch to recording a voice message instead.
Angry words morph into something else. Suddenly, I’m no longer angry at him. Instead, I find myself spilling every dark thought that has crossed my mind, every agonizing feeling I’ve had in these last few months. I tell him everything. I lay myself bare to a boy who doesn’t deserve to hear one word of it. Whodoesn’t deserve to hear my pain, but gets to because there is no one else I can confide in to see such misery dwelling inside me.
Once I’ve purged every thought and feeling, I realize none of my messages have gone through. Not a single one. That can only mean one of two things. He’s either blocked me or he’s changed his number.
I let out a half-laugh, half-sob as I wipe my tears away. I’m surprised this phone is still working, given the lengths Raffaele went to permanently ghost me. Why go through all the trouble of blocking me or getting a new phone number, when he could have easily just cancelled my phone contract? Did he forget that he’s still the one footing the phone bill?
Another laugh escapes me, and with it comes another realization. Letting all of that out, putting every raw feeling on display like that, was… cathartic. I feel lighter somehow. Lighter than I’ve felt in ages.
Then a new thought settles in. If Rafe blocked me or got himself a new number, that means that all these messages—all my thoughts and feelings, every confession I’ve laid bare—are lost in the void.
