Evan nodded.
He stepped aside.
She began walking.
Then stopped.
Turned.
“Did you ever try another way?”
The question came sharper than she intended.
He understood.
“After that message?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
The answer hurt.
Evan saw.
“You told me not to.”
“I know.”
“You had told me before that when you asked for space, I kept trying to solve things.”
Freya remembered.
“I thought respecting the boundary was the least selfish thing I could do.”
She looked down.
That was so painfully consistent with the man she had known that she almost hated him for it.
Evan continued.
“I wanted to call.”
“I didn’t.”
“Okay.”
This time the word was allowed.
Freya walked away.
Leah intercepted her first.
“What happened?”
“Not here.”
Brooke looked past her toward Evan.
“Do I slap him?”
“No.”
“Verbally?”
“No.”
Maya took Freya’s glass.
“You’re shaking.”
“I know.”
“Do we leave?”
“Yes.”
That was how Freya Collins left the first conversation she had imagined for three years.
No triumphant speech.
No public humiliation.
No revenge.
Just three screenshots on her phone and one question she was afraid to ask her sister.
The car ride to Freya’s apartment was nearly silent.
Leah drove.
Maya sat beside her.
Brooke and Freya were in the back.
Usually Brooke filled silence instinctively.
Tonight she tried twice and stopped.
Finally Freya said:
“He has texts.”
Brooke turned.
“What kind?”
“From me.”
“What?”
“Except not from me.”
Maya looked over her shoulder.
Freya showed them.
Leah pulled into the first legal parking space she found.
All three read.
Brooke whispered:
“Oh my God.”
Maya looked at Freya.
“Where were you at two seventeen?”
“Asleep.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Hospital?”
“Yes.”
Leah asked:
“Who had your phone?”
Freya looked out the window.
Nobody needed the answer.
Brooke said it.
“Tessa.”
Freya closed her eyes.
Three years ago, every one of these women had watched her grieve Evan.
Leah brought food.
Maya removed photographs from Freya’s living room after one drunken Friday when every image felt insulting.
Brooke created a dating profile for her four months later and then deleted it when Freya cried in a bathroom at a restaurant.
All of them had believed the same story.
Evan Mercer left when Freya’s father became inconvenient.
The timing made the story powerful.
Evan had been interviewing for a Seattle position.
Freya had received a twelve-month urban-design fellowship there.
They had talked about moving together.
Then Martin Collins suffered a stroke.
Freya stayed.
Evan left.
Story complete.
Except apparently not.
Brooke whispered:
“I am going to kill Tessa.”
“No.”
“Figuratively.”
“Still no.”
“If she did this—”
“I said no.”
Brooke stopped.
Freya’s voice broke.
“I do not know what she did.”
Maya looked toward the screenshots.
“You know someone sent that message from your phone.”
“Yes.”
“You know she had it.”
“Yes.”
“That is not proof she sent it.”
Freya looked at her gratefully.
Exactly.
Evidence first.
Not because Freya doubted where the line pointed.