Page 134 of Tight Ends & Tiaras
BEN
I wander through the house.Sienna left all of her living room furniture. The flatscreen. Everything in the kitchen. Everything in my room. But her yoga studio and bedroom are empty.
“Damn. Sorry, man.” Olly bounces Lily on his hip.
“I just don’t understand why she wouldn’t talk to me first. Why would she suddenly move out? We promised each other—” I can’t bring myself to tell Olly how Sienna and I promised to always be friends first. To always talk if something bothered the other person. I know she was upset by how my family treated her and blindsided by Janelle—rightfully so—but the rational thing to do would be to discuss it. If she wanted to break up after that, I’d let her go. If she wanted me to move out, I’d do so. I wouldn’t be happy about those options, but that would make more sense than her ghosting me.
I do a double-take when I see a giant man standing in my doorway.
“I’m Melvin,” he says, his baritone booming in my small living room. He looks fierce, like one of our offensive linemen when we face UT.
“Are you here for the rest of her furniture?” I open my arms. “Almost everything still in this house belongs to Sienna.”
He glances at Olly and then back to me. “I came to give you her keys.”
“What the fuck, man? Why would she leave me like that? I fucking love her.”
It slams into me. How I’ve never said those words before.
The thought of never seeing Sienna’s beautiful smile first thing in the morning cracks something in my chest. She and I were a team. She’s my person. She’s not supposed to take off like this.
Why didn’t I tell her I loved her? Why was I holding back?
I drop onto the couch and hold my head in my hands. I’m sweating, and my heart is racing, and my throat feels thick, like I’m about to choke.
This feeling of dread is so familiar. When my parents died, when my sister left, all the times I freaked out when my aunt and uncle would come home late and I’d worry they’d been killed in a car crash.
Oh, fuck. I’m having a panic attack.
Black dots blur my vision. I try to breathe through it.
In the background, I hear Olly and Melvin talking. I lean back on the couch and close my eyes or maybe I pass out. I don’t know. Does it matter?
When I open them again, Olly is standing over me with a desperate expression on his face.
“Fucking thought you’d had a heart attack or something. Don’t do that shit again.”
I’m surprised to see Melvin on the couch next to me. He doesn’t look like he wants to murder me any longer.
“So you love my little sparrow, huh?” he asks, but it’s obvious from the tone of his voice that he doesn’t believe me.
I try to speak, but my throat is dry. I cough. “Look, man, I don’t know what Sienna told you or why she took off like her ass was on fire, but yeah, for the record, I love her. But obviously, that doesn’t mean shit. Who moves out after one argument? Things with my family might not have gone well, but who ghosts a man like that?”
He probably doesn’t even know what I’m talking about. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that she’s gone.
The devastation is starting to melt away, and I’m getting pissed.
As I get up, Melvin puts a beefy hand on my arm.
“If you care so much for her, why’d you do this?” He holds out his phone and scrolls through several photos.
At first, I don’t know what I’m looking at.
He reads the confusion on my face and, after a long, withering glare, explains that someone sent these photos to Sienna last night.
Oh, shit, is that me?
My stomach drops as I connect the dots.
