Chapter 2: Ghosted in Plain Sight

After that, my girlfriend still refused to break up. But in front of others, she rarely interacted with me. She kept me close, yet kept her distance.

She’d still text me late at night, but at school, she hardly even glanced my way. It was like we were both pretending, afraid to let anyone see the truth.

Although I was allowed back in class, every day during lessons, morning and evening reading, and study hall, I could only watch as my girlfriend and her desk partner studied together, helping each other, chatting and laughing.

From my seat in the back row, I watched them pass notes, swap books, laugh at private jokes. The distance between us grew wider with every day.

Morning and evening reading were especially unbearable—my personal nightmare.

The smell of dry-erase markers and cheap coffee filled the air. Every time they laughed, it echoed off the cinderblock walls. Those quiet moments, when everyone else seemed to find peace, were when my loneliness screamed the loudest. I would stare at my hands, pretending to be absorbed in my work.

I would watch the two of them, taking turns reciting to each other. After finishing, they would shout and cheer, “Wow, you memorized it so fast!”

The words stung, even though I tried to tune them out. Their encouragements echoed through the classroom like a challenge.

During study hall, their voices discussing problems were always loud. Every teacher supervising study hall not only didn’t stop them, but even praised them for creating such a positive study atmosphere in the class.

It was as if the rules didn’t apply to them. Teachers smiled, saying things like, "That's the spirit! Help each other succeed!" The injustice felt suffocating.

They grew more and more inseparable, more and more in sync, more and more dependent on each other. Teachers and classmates increasingly accepted this harmonious arrangement, as if whether early romance was good or bad depended only on the people involved…

No one cared about the double standard. If it were me, I'd have been scolded or called into the principal's office. But for them, it was fine—maybe even encouraged.

I endured in silence, memorizing vocabulary, economics, government, poetry, and history all by myself…

My notes were full of scribbled words and underlined phrases, but my mind wandered endlessly. I forced myself to focus, to prove I wasn’t as useless as everyone thought.

On weekends, my girlfriend would still go for walks with me, talk with me, sometimes bring a book and say she wanted to recite it with me, then have me recite it back to her.

It was like we were trying to hold on to a ghost of what we had, walking through the local park, fallen leaves crunching under our shoes. For a while, it almost felt normal again.

But every time, halfway through, she would mention him. Every conversation, she would talk about him…

She’d light up talking about him, her eyes sparkling in a way I hadn’t seen in months. She'd say, "Tyler found this awesome shortcut in the math homework," or "Tyler said something hilarious in class today." It was like he was the third wheel in all our conversations now.

She couldn’t help but bring him up every few sentences, as if she had to mention him every few steps.

Her voice would light up when she said his name, not realizing each mention was like a pinprick to my heart. I kept nodding along, pretending it didn’t bother me.

Maybe she would never realize that my sensitive heart was already riddled with wounds, and at this moment, she was pouring salt into every one of them.

Inside, I winced at every mention. On the outside, I just smiled, making sure she never saw the pain flicker across my face.

I felt pain, but I didn’t say a word, nor did I show it.

The ache settled deep in my chest, a dull throb I carried everywhere. Still, I said nothing, afraid my words would only make things worse.

I acted as if nothing had happened—calm and indifferent.

My mask grew thicker, my smiles more practiced. I even joked about it sometimes, as if laughing at myself would make it hurt less.

The more animatedly she talked about him, the more detached I became.

She never seemed to notice how I drifted away in those moments. Maybe she was too caught up in her own feelings to see mine fraying at the edges.

Sometimes I would reply, “You two make a killer team. Just don’t let it tank your GPA, okay?”

The words tasted like ash, but I said them anyway. Maybe it was my way of holding onto a little dignity, pretending I was above it all.

This weird relationship dragged on for a long time, and just as I was almost used to this emotional limbo—

It was like living in a holding pattern, circling the airport, waiting for a runway that would never clear. I was numb, resigned, almost forgetting how it felt to truly belong.

One night, she suddenly realized something and sent me a message: “How did we end up like this?”

Her text buzzed in just past midnight, the kind of hour when questions like that weigh twice as much. I stared at my phone, thumb hovering over the screen, hesitating as the emotional weight settled on my chest.

I fell into deep thought. Yeah, how did we end up like this?

I stared at the ceiling, replaying every choice, every small moment that had led us here.

She sent another message: “Maybe, years from now, when we look back, we’ll feel regret.”

Her words hit harder than she probably intended. The word "regret" felt like a verdict on everything we'd been through.

Seeing the word “regret,” a sharp pain shot through my heart.

It was as if a cold blade slid between my ribs. I wondered if she felt it too, or if it was just me.

It was as if we both already knew how the story would end, but neither of us was willing to take the first step to save it.

We were both trapped—too scared to let go, too tired to keep holding on. The inertia of sadness kept us circling.

Isn’t this kind of regret always man-made?

It dawned on me that we were doing this to ourselves, watching the train crash in slow motion, powerless to look away.

Thinking this, I replied: “Let’s go out together during Memorial Day weekend.”

My thumbs trembled over the screen as I hit send, hoping the promise of one more day together might spark something new—or at least give us closure.

Then I closed my eyes and replayed our memories in my mind.

I let myself drift, remembering the early days, back when everything felt simple and bright.