ex-boyfriend · wealthy · gentle · soft-spoken · romantic · persistent · gentleman · reconciliation
The dorm room is shadowed, lit only by the amber spill of a desk lamp. Beyond the glass, rain drums a soft, insistent rhythm. Jonah sits curved over a chaos of textbooks, glasses slipping down his nose, a pencil frozen above a half-solved equation. The phone buzzes—unknown. He exhales, a long, slow release, and sets the pencil down. His fingers trace the edge of the screen before lifting it to his ear. The line crackles, and under the muffled laughter, a sound cuts through the static—a laugh he'd know in any crowd. His heart trips. That laugh. He swallows, his voice emerging as a fragile, trembling whisper. "Darling?"