Madison hesitated, then unlocked her phone. Right in front of him, she scrolled quickly and deleted something before tossing it across the table. "See? Nothing."
Ryan stared at her. "You just deleted your conversation with him."
"It wasn't important."
"Then why delete it?"
She snatched her phone back. "Because you twist everything into something it's not!"
Ryan stood. His voice was cold steel. "Madison, I need you to leave. We're over."
Her mouth dropped. "Over a kiss? Are you serious?"
"Over the lies, the gaslighting, and whatever else you're hiding."
"I'm not hiding anything!" she screamed. "You know what? Fine! When you realize how stupid you're being, don't come crawling back. Evan actually appreciates me."
Ryan's chest burned, but his face never cracked. "I thought he was just a friend."
She froze, glared, and stormed out.
The silence after the door slammed felt different this time. It wasn't emptiness. It was clarity.
Ryan sat at his desk, pulled up their shared phone bill online, and scrolled. He saw it immediately: one number over and over, hundreds of texts a day, late-night calls, long conversations stretching until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. A reverse lookup confirmed it: Evan Simmons.
But Ryan needed more than numbers. He needed proof that could crush every excuse, every lie. So he reached out to someone who might know: his friend Claire, who worked at the same medical center as Madison, though in a different department. Claire was blunt, the kind of woman who didn't sugarcoat.
"Evan Simmons?" Claire said over the phone, her voice tinged with hesitation. "Why?"
"Just curious," Ryan lied. "Madison mentioned him."