If someone had told me that a single phone call five years after the breakup that nearly shattered me would send my life spinning in a direction I never expected, I would have laughed. Or cried. Or both.
Because for years, I tried to bury everything about him: the memories, the heartbreak, the lingering “what ifs.”
But life has a way of yanking old wounds open just when you think the scars have finally settled. It started with a familiar impulse. One moment of weakness.
A thought I’d promised myself I wouldn’t entertain again. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, unremarkable in every visible way. I had laundry tumbling in the dryer, a cup of lukewarm coffee sitting beside me on the couch, and a book I hadn’t opened in days resting on my lap.
Outside, the late-summer heat shimmered lazily through the blinds. And then, without warning, the thought crossed my mind. “I wonder if he’s happy.”
I closed my eyes as soon as the thought surfaced, as if shutting them tightly enough would squeeze it back into the depths where it belonged.
But it didn’t work. His face, soft brown eyes, shy dimples, the easy smile I used to know like the back of my hand—flashed behind my eyelids. His name was Lucas.
We dated for three years in our mid-twenties. He was the first man who made me believe in the kind of love that made ordinary moments feel extraordinary. And then he was the first to teach me that even the most devoted heart can be betrayed.
Five years ago, I discovered he’d been cheating on me emotionally at first, then physically with a woman from his office. A woman he insisted was “just a friend,” “just a coworker,” “just someone who needed advice.”
I learned the truth when she posted a photo of the two of them on her private account, which a mutual acquaintance screenshotted and sent me with a stunned caption: “Does he think you won’t find out?”
I didn’t confront him with anger. I confronted him with heartbreak.
He apologized. Sobbed. Begged.
Promised. And then he admitted it had gone on for months. I ended things the same night.
Packed every reminder of him into a cardboard box and shoved it deep into my closet. He called every day for weeks. Then every week for months.
Then not at all. And now, five years later, I thought of him again. I hated that I did.
To distract myself, I grabbed my phone and scrolled aimlessly through emails and recipes and news updates I didn’t care about. Just as I was about to set it aside, my screen lit up with an incoming call. An unknown number.
I almost ignored it. Until the last name registered, not because it was labeled, but because I still remembered his voice mail number after all these years. My heart stuttered.
No. It couldn’t be. But it was.
I swiped to answer before my brain could stop me. “Hello?”
A voice I hadn’t heard in five years rushed into my ear, breathless, shaky, familiar in a way that made my stomach twist. “Lydia?”
My heart thudded.
“Lucas?”
There was a long pause, one heavy enough that I could hear the muffled sounds of music and voices behind him. It sounded like a celebration. A gathering.
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