Chapter Text
It never meant to be like this. No, this wasn’t the intent at all.
The phone exited your grasp like you had just touched hot coal. Only you dropped it a second too late, skin already burned. It seared its way up your arm, past your chest and settled under that lump formulating in the inside of your throat. Your face; hot.
You were grateful then for the wetness pooling at your inner eyelids, cooling you down. You are colder now. Ice cold.
The incessant buzz of your notifications overriding the stifled labored breathing of your own. Five minutes ago you decided idly to:
- prop your legs on the coffee table
- open instagram
- click tags
- type in: #armiehammer
You had done this as a fated ritual every night. You couldn’t type in his name because it would be too obvious. Too obvious to liz, who occupies your phone more often than you ever do. Too obvious to yourself, really, because you convinced yourself long ago that you wouldn’t be doing...this. This thing of keeping up with his life. Whats funny is that 90 percent of the photos tagged are not even of you, but of him. But you knew this. You think briefly of the interchangeability of your names...and the lunacy that started it all. Elio and Oliver. Timmy and Armie. Call be my....how ironic. A jilted laugh.
Four minutes ago you just so happen to scroll past a photo of him...and her. Then you can’t stop. You’re digging further. Shes donning his pink hat. Another. Hes reaching over- grazing her hair. Another. An embrace. Another. Lips locked. The past three minutes feels like three hours. This shouldn’t be a surprise really. Liz passively mentioned it over breakfast one day. Liz passively mentioning it while tucking the kids to sleep. She’s looking towards you, phone in hand cooing “They look so sweet, hun look at this.” But you never did. or “I knew they’d hit it off Arms...we should have introduced them sooner.”
You never respond.
At breakfast you’d lower your newspaper a bit and give her a glare. The lower half of your face hidden-is jaw clenched.
In the dark you carefully pick up the phone. You handle it like a grenade. Careful not to double-tap, accidentally. But with your eyes closed you haphazardly try to exit out of the app. Careful not to see those images again. A swallow. You thumb through your messages. You deleted his contact but his number and text messages remain.
A month ago. Thats when he has texted you last. “Don’t ever contact me again, Armie. I mean it.”
And you never did.