I Made Us Matching Avatars, But He Protected Another Girl Chapter 05

I Made Us Matching Avatars, But He Protected Another Girl Chapter 05

I gathered my things and walked out without a backward glance.

Watching me go, so sure of myself, Nate felt something close to doubt about himself for the very first time

in his life.

For the first time ever, he didn’t even spare Lily a look. He just turned and walked back to his office in silence.

I wandered the streets afterward, clutching what little I’d grabbed, completely adrift.

The sun beat down overhead, and somehow I still felt frozen to the bone.

The second the words left my mouth, I hadn’t felt a shred of regret. If anything, something in my chest had

loosened for the first time in years.

Five years of holding onto that relationship, and all it had ever given me was the slow, steady feeling of

suffocating.

I barely recognized the person I’d become.

I took a breath and headed straight to the apartment Nate and I had shared, packed up everything that was mine, and hauled it all back to my parents’ place.

My mother and father startled at the sight of me, worry written plain across their faces.

“Claire, honey, did you two fight again?”

I shook my head, calm on the surface, ignoring the ache underneath.

“Mom, Nate and I broke up.”

“I’ve thought it through. We’re just not right for each other. He’s too cold, and I can’t do this anymore.”

My parents went quiet for a long while, neither of them saying a word.

Then they cooked me a big dinner, slipped me some money, and told me to go somewhere and clear my

head.

I didn’t argue. Before I headed back to my room, though, I brought something up.

“Mom, didn’t you mention the neighbor’s son was back in town? Something about setting me up with him?”

“Oh, that’s right! Little Ryan grew up right down the street from us. You used to say you’d marry him when you two were kids!”

I ducked my head and smiled, pressing my lips together.

“I’ll meet him. I’m twenty-eight. It’s about time I did.”

My mother looked like she wanted to say more, but I slipped off to my room before she could.

I scrolled through my whole phone. Not one message from Nate.

I couldn’t tell if that disappointed me or if some part of me had already known better than to expect anything

else.

After all, hadn’t I already stockpiled more than enough disappointment to last me a lifetime?

I switched off my phone and stared up at the ceiling, my mind blank.

I don’t know how much time passed before a new friend request popped up: Ryan Beckett.

I accepted it, and he replied almost instantly. Hey, Claire! It’s been forever. I remember you’re big into skiing, want to check out that new resort that just opened on the south side of town?

I said yes. Once we settled on a day, something in my chest finally eased.

Adding Ryan wasn’t about spiting Nate, and it wasn’t some desperate bid to distract myself either.

I was single. He was single.

We were the right age, our parents approved, and there wasn’t a single thing about his looks or his height I could find to complain about.

With all of that settled in my head, I finally drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Meanwhile, Nate had just walked into an apartment that felt subtly, unsettlingly different.

Like the fact that my favorite stuffed bear was missing from its spot on the shoe rack.

Or that the roses on the table, the ones replaced fresh every single day without fail, hadn’t been touched in

five.

The produce in the fridge had gone soft and rotten, stinking up the kitchen with nobody left to clean it out.

He frowned and toed off his shoes.

Then he froze the instant he opened the closet.

Half the shoes were missing.

Not his. Every single pair of mine.

His jaw tightened, something like irritation flickering behind his eyes.

He cleared out the kitchen trash, swapped the dead roses for nothing, and headed upstairs. The second he

pushed open the bedroom door, he went completely still.

Everything. Gone.

My clothes, my hats, gone.

The mirror and the makeup that used to clutter the vanity, gone.

Even my shower gel had vanished from the bathroom without a trace.

It was as though none of it had ever existed in the first place.

For the first time, something close to fear crept up his spine, the apartment suddenly, terrifyingly hollow.

That’s when the front door downstairs clicked open, someone keying in the code like they’d done it a hundred

times before.

His eyes lit, the corner of his mouth curving into the faintest smile.

He took the stairs two at a time and threw his arms around whoever had just walked in.

“Claire, I knew you’d-”

“Nate, sweetheart, it’s just me. It’s Lily.”

He went rigid and let go of her at once.

Looking at her flushed, hopeful face, something in his chest sank all over again.