You Were Better When I Was Gone Chapter 05
I didn’t pick up.
He messaged: “Sarah, I need to talk to you.”
“Tomorrow. I’m sleeping.”
“Now.”
I took a breath, sat up, and answered.
On screen, Luke sat on his balcony, the city skyline behind him.
He looked tired, dark circles, two shirt buttons undone, hair mussed like he’d been running his hands through it all night.
“Sarah.”
“Yeah.”
He studied me for a few seconds. “Are you coming back?”
“I’m doing fine here.”
“That’s not what I asked.” His voice dropped. “Are you coming back?”
“Not for now.”
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he said something I hadn’t expected. “Sophie told me she likes me.”
The air went still. “Last week,” he said, flat. “She said she’s always liked me.”
My fingers curled into the blanket. “And did you say yes?”
He didn’t answer.
Silence was the answer. I felt ridiculous. That last, unspoken thing I’d been holding onto, it shattered completely.
He asked if I was coming back, not because he missed me, but because he wanted to tell me this and wait for me to smile and wish them well.
“Congratulations,” I said. The word came out dry, like it had scraped its way up.
On the screen, he seemed to exhale. “You’re not angry?”
I shook my head.
“Sarah.”
“Sarah,” I corrected him.
He paused again. “Oh, Sophie said she wanted to apologize. When you come back, we could all still”
“I’m not coming back.”
His expression shifted. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m not coming back, Luke.”
Outside my window, the London sky was beginning to lighten. Gray and cold and completely indifferent.
I looked at the face I’d known for eight years, and I smiled, just a little. “Goodbye.”
I ended the call.
As the screen went dark, his face froze there, not angry, not indifferent. Just lost, like someone realizing something was actually vanishing.
After hanging up, I didn’t sleep at all. I lay there until the sun came up, watching the light crawl across the ceiling.
The next morning, I went to work with dark circles. Emma glanced at me and silently refilled my espresso. “Those two again?”
“Last time.”
She hummed and didn’t ask.
The days blurred together. The new project kept me busy enough to forget.
The cross-border e-commerce section I was handling required direct client negotiations, all in English. At first, I stumbled. Then I found my footing.
The Director gave me a shoutout at the weekly meeting, unique perspective, solid data.
Nobody added “even she could do it.”
Just normal praise. Normal recognition.
I stood up and said thank you, voice steady, no tremor.
That evening, a message came in. Not from Luke. Not from Sophie.
From Nathan, our high school class president.
“Sarah? I heard you’re in London. I’m traveling there for work next week. Free for dinner?”
Nathan. The boy who sat behind me in high school, went to Cambridge for grad school, and now worked in the City.
We weren’t close, but we weren’t strangers either, just clean, simple classmates. No nicknames. No mocking. Only the occasional “Thanks” when he borrowed my notes.
“Sure,” I replied.
Friday night, he took me to a restaurant along the Thames.
He wore a sharp suit, looked taller than in high school, but his smile was the same. “You’ve changed a lot,” he said, sliding the menu toward me. “More confident.”
“Really?”
“In high school, you barely met anyone’s eyes. Now it’s different.”
I looked down at the menu, ears warm. “Maybe it’s the environment.”
“What environment?”
“The one where nobody calls me Dummy.”
His chopsticks paused. “Who called you Dummy?”
“No one anymore,” I said, smiling. “Old stuff.”
Dinner was easy. We talked about work, London life, high school memories, nothing that made me uncomfortable.
At the end, he said, “If you ever need anything here, just reach out. You don’t have to carry things alone.”
“Okay.”
On my way home, I posted my first Instagram story since arriving in London.
A photo of the Thames at night. Caption: “Dinner with a new friend. London’s looking pretty tonight.”
Five minutes later, Sophie commented: “Omg Sarah you have a new friend?? Is it a guy? Don’t get scammed over there, you’ve never been good at reading people…”
I stared at it for two seconds, then deleted her comment.
Three minutes later, Luke called. I didn’t pick up.
He texted: “Who did you have dinner with?”
“Classmate.”
“Guy or girl?”
“Does it matter?”
A long silence on his end. Then: “Sarah, Sophie and I aren’t officially together.”
I blinked. “Didn’t you say she confessed?”
“She did. But I didn’t say yes.”
“…But last time you”
“Last time you asked if I said yes. I didn’t answer.” His voice was rough. “And then you hung up.”
I leaned back in the taxi seat, watching the city lights blur past. My chest felt hollow, not empty, just hollowed out.
Absurd, his silence meant not yes to him, and yes to me. Because he never explained. Because he assumed I should just know.
“Then why are you telling me now?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away. Then: “Sarah, there are things I haven’t figured out.”
“And now you have?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Then take your time.”
I hung up.
The taxi pulled up to my building. It was 11 p.m., the wind cold, but my chest felt calm, not because I’d stopped caring, but because I’d stopped needing his answer.
Upstairs, Emma was watching TV in the living room. “Ooh, date night?”
“Not a date.”
“Sure, sure.” She didn’t look up. “Your phone’s been buzzing nonstop.”
I checked, Sophie had sent a long voice memo.
I listened for two seconds and exited. It started with: “Sarah, did you block me? Why did you delete my comment? I was just worried about you.”
I marked it as read. I didn’t reply.
That night, I slept better than I had in weeks.
Not a single dream.