Chapter 1: The Last Supper

After eight years, six months, and twenty-five days, Derek and I sat across from each other in a booth at the Bluebird Diner, the hum of the AC louder than our conversation. We broke up.

The reason?

He set his phone face down on the chipped Formica table while we ate, the screen pulsing with every buzz like a ticking time bomb.

The dull vibration of his phone sounded like the countdown to the end of our relationship.

I put down my fork and knife. "Derek, let’s break up."

He let out a breath so deep it rattled the salt shaker between us.

He didn’t even bother to ask why. He just said, "Okay."

He could finally stop pretending.

All because, back in high school, in front of all the teachers and students, he’d once said,

"Natalie, I swear, I’ll never be the one to say break up."

So,

he’d been waiting for me to say it first.

For a second, I wanted him to argue, to beg, to do anything but agree. But he just sat there, shoulders loose, like he’d been waiting for this all along.

The words hung in the air, heavy and final, like a clock striking midnight in a silent room. My chest felt empty, as if every second of those eight years had just been wiped clean by the quiet acceptance in his voice. I glanced at the phone lying between us, its screen still dark, and thought how even technology seemed to be counting down for us all along. In that moment, I realized just how much we’d both been waiting for this exact ending—just no one wanted to say it out loud first.