✽ Jason ✽
I watched Mandy leave through the diner window. Ben’s car pulled up to the curb, and Rosa guided Mandy toward it with a hand on her back. Mandy held her bag tight against her side like it was armor. She didn’t look at me. Not once. She didn’t hesitate at the door. She didn’t pause like she might change her mind.
She left like she meant it.
She left like it was the end.
I watched as Ben drove away, and the world kept moving as if nothing had happened. I stood there, in the middle of the quiet diner, and felt something hollow open in my chest. It wasn’t pain in the way people described pain. It wasn’t a dramatic ache. It was more like a sudden absence of pressure. It was as if something that had always been there was now gone, and my body didn’t know how to stand without it. E
