Electric Blue

Maya's iPhone buzzed against her nightstand at 2:47 AM. Her stomach dropped before she even looked.

It was him. Again.

"You up?"

Three months after he'd ghosted her at that house party—the one where she'd finally worn that dress from Urban, the one where she'd practiced her laugh in the mirror until her mom asked if she was okay—Ethan was messaging like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't left her reading his Spotify activity for weeks, becoming a private investigator of her own heartbreak. A spy in the war of someone who didn't know she existed anymore.

The blue light hit her face in the darkness. She could feel the exhaustion pulling at her eyelids, but something else pulled harder. The possibility. The maybe.

Outside, the first summer storm cracked open the sky. Lightning flashed through her blinds, sudden and stark, like someone taking a flash photo of her alone in her room at 3 AM. If someone could see this moment—her, in her oversized hoodie, her hair falling out of its messy bun, staring at this screen like it was the last drop of water in a desert—would they understand?

Or would they laugh?

Her thumb hovered over the keyboard. She'd typed and deleted approximately eight hundred responses since October.

"I hate you." No. Too dramatic.

"Why now?" Too desperate.

"Who is this?" Pathetic.

The truth was, the version of herself that still replied to Ethan at 3 AM was the same version that had worn that dress, that had believed someone's eyes lingering meant something real. She was still that girl, and she hated it.

Another flash of lightning. This time, the thunder followed close behind, shaking the windowpane. Like the universe was telling her something.

She typed the only honest thing left:

"I'm not who I was when you left."

Then she turned off her phone, pulled the covers over her head, and listened to the rain fall like applause.