Chapter 30: LOSING A FRIEND

MIA

Five days.

I'd been checking my phone obsessively for five days waiting for Yuna to respond to literally anything and all I had to show for it was a growing collection of unanswered messages and three voicemails that had gone completely ignored.

Hey, just checking in because I haven't heard from you in a while, everything okay?

Yuna please respond I'm getting worried

Call me back

Nothing. Complete radio silence from someone who used to text me fifteen times a day about everything from coffee orders to relationship advice to photos of dogs she saw on the street.

"She's probably just busy," Dante said when I mentioned it over breakfast. "You said she's been stressed about work."

"Not this busy, she'd at least text back no matter how brief." I scrolled through our message history and felt my stomach twist because the last thing she'd sent me was three days before the silence started: Be careful. Please.

I'd responded with “I always am” and hadn't heard from her since.

"Maybe she needs space." He refilled my coffee. "You two have been joined at the hip for years. Sometimes people need to step back and focus on themselves."

"You don't know Yuna. She wouldn't just disappear."

"Then go check on her." He suggested and it made sense. "Stop by her apartment and see if she's okay. You'll probably find out she's fine and just forgot to respond to texts."

"Will you come with me?"

Something flickered across his face too quickly for me to read. "Of course. When do you want to go?"

Yuna lived in a fourth-floor building in Brooklyn that she'd decorated with plants, string lights and vintage furniture she'd found at an estate sale. I'd been there hundreds of times and could navigate the building with my eyes closed but today the hallway felt different somehow. I’ve been having a nagging gut feeling about coming here and now it was eating away at me.

I knocked on her door. "Yuna? It's me."

I waited for a moment and then I heard footsteps and the sound of multiple locks being undone  which was new because she used to just have the standard deadbolt and now it sounded like she'd installed a chain and more.

The door opened about six inches and Yuna's face appeared in the gap.

She looked terrible with dark circles under her eyes, hair unwashed and pulled back, skin pale like she hadn't seen sunlight in days. But it was her expression that made my chest ache because she looked scared in a way I'd only seen once before when her ex had shown up drunk at her apartment demanding to talk.

"Hey." I tried to smile. "You okay? You haven't been answering."

"I'm fine." Her voice was empty. "I just needed some time alone."

"Can we come in? I brought coffee." I held up the cup I'd grabbed on the way over.

"No." She rushed out, making me frown. "I mean, now's not a good time. I was just about to shower."

Her hands were shaking where they gripped the door edge and her eyes kept darting past me to where Dante stood a few feet back which made my frown deepen. Yuna was always an outgoing and loud person, now… she was a shell of herself.

"Yuna, what's going on? You're freaking me out."

"Nothing's going on. I'm just tired, I needed space and I'm sorry I didn't text back but I'm fine, okay?" She was talking too fast now, her words all tangled together. "You should go."

"Did something happen? Is someone bothering you?" I remembered her saying she felt followed and guilt washed over me because I'd been so wrapped up in my own situation that I'd barely checked in. "The stalking thing you mentioned, is it—"

"No. Nothing like that. I'm fine. Everything's fine." Her eyes darted to Dante again and this time they stayed there for a second longer and I saw something in them that looked like recognition mixed with fear. "I just need you to go. Please."

"Let me help—"

"You can't help!" She cut me off and her voice cracked. "Nobody can help. I just need to be alone right now."

Dante stepped forward and spoke for the first time. "We understand and we'll give you space but if you need anything, Mia is still with me so you know where to find her."

I watched as Yuna's face went paler, if that was possible, and her hands tightened on the door edge until her knuckles went white.

"I know where she is." Said quietly. "Thank you."

Something in her tone made me look between them trying to understand the subtext I was clearly missing because they were having a conversation I wasn't part of and Yuna looked absolutely terrified.

"Yuna—"

"Goodbye, Mia." She started closing the door. "Take care of yourself."

"Wait—"

The door shut in my face and I heard all the locks slide back in one by one and then silence. I stood there, stunned, staring at the closed door while trying to understand what had just happened because that wasn't my best friend, that was someone who looked like her but sounded like she was being held hostage and was trying to communicate in code I couldn't crack.

"Come on." Dante's hand on my shoulder. "She said she needs space and I think we should respect that."

"Something's wrong. Did you see how she looked at you?"

"She barely looked at me."

"Exactly. She wouldn't make eye contact and her hands were shaking." I pulled out my phone to call her again.

"Mia." His hand closed over mine, stopping me from dialing. "Give her time. If you push too hard you'll make it worse. She clearly needs to work through something on her own."

"But—"

"Trust me on this." His voice was gentle but firm. "Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is leave them alone."

I let him guide me down the stairs and out of the building but I kept looking back hoping to see her watching from the window or following us to say she'd changed her mind and thankfully, her window was open with the curtain pulled back just enough for me to see her silhouette standing there with her phone pressed to her ear. She was talking to someone, gesturing with her free hand like she was agitated, scared or both.

Then she must have seen me looking because she froze mid-gesture and the curtain dropped back into place so fast it was like she'd been burned.

"She's watching us," I said.

"She's probably just worried we're still standing outside." Dante steered me toward the subway. "Let's go home. Give her the space she asked for."

But it didn't feel like space she'd asked for. It felt like distance she'd been forced to create and I couldn't shake the image of her face in that doorway, pale, scared and desperate for me to understand something she couldn't say out loud.

Laying awake at two AM I was trying to figure out how I had failed my best friend when my phone lit up with a text from her. My heart leapt with hope which instantly crashed as I read the text.

“I'm sorry. I can't be your friend anymore, it's not safe.”

I stared at the message for a full minute trying to make sense of it. Not safe for who and from what? She didn't say. After fifteen years of friendship she was suddenly cutting me off with a cage text in the middle of the night. It didn't make sense.

“What are you talking about? Yuna please” I wrote back but the message didn't deliver.

I tried calling but it went straight to voicemail without even ringing. I texted again and it still failed and then I realized that she had blocked me. I sat there in the dark staring at my phone while Dante peacefully slept next to me while I tried to remember the last time I'd felt this alone.

When did my life become so isolated to the point where I lost the only person I could call at 2am when I was sad?

Somewhere along the way I'd let everyone else fall away until the only person left was the one sleeping peacefully next to me completely unaffected by the fact that I'd just lost the last person in my life who existed outside his orbit.

I turned off my phone and lay back down and felt Dante's arm come around me in his sleep, pulling me close and holding me tight.

Like he was afraid I might try to leave and he knew I was finally starting to understand that I should.