Page 50 of Deliah
“Slutty gets ghosted.”
“No, boring gets ghosted. Slutty gets flown across countries.”
She had a point. Eventually, I gave in; I thought fuck it. The red dress. The red Prada dress I’d stupidly splurged on back in summer when I was still trying to feel expensive in a life that had gutted me. I’d never even worn it. Paired with black Louboutins that screamed, “Kiss me or regret it.” I spent the whole weekpreparing like it was Miss Fucking Universe. New hair, new nails, sunbeds to wash out the winter greys in my skin. I hit the gym like I was training for war. And maybe I was. Because this felt like a comeback. The sass was returning. The ‘I will ruin you’ energy was crawling back into my bones. I hadn’t thought about Jay once that week. Not seriously. Not the way I used to. His ghost didn’t live in me anymore. And the bruise he left? Gone. In fact, I fucking hated him.
Saturday came. And I was a wreck.
Even my mum noticed. “It’s only a date, Deliah.”
“Yeah, I know, Mum,” I muttered, leaving the room before she started planning the wedding.
6:59 p.m. Of course. I heard the car pull up and bolted out the door before he had the chance to knock and meet my parents like some lad I’d picked up off Hinge.
He was leaning against the car, suited in deep charcoal grey, smug, holding a bouquet of twenty-two perfectly wrapped red roses. He looked at me, slowly, eyes dragging from head to toe, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
“Good girl.”
I blinked. “Good girl? What’s that supposed to mean?”
He smirked, low and knowing. “The red dress. You remembered. And you look…” He paused, his gaze shamelessly bold. “Perfect.”
He handed me the flowers and opened the door like we were stepping into a world only he knew the map for. I sat down, my legs shaking slightly, and he got in like he’d already decided how the night would end. We drove into the city. He didn’t speak much at first—just glanced over every now and then like he was studying me. I glanced back, defiant.
“Staring is rude,” I muttered, turning just enough to catch the edge of his smirk. “So is ghosting,” I added, sharper this time, watching the road like it might give me answers he wouldn’t.
His grip on the steering wheel tightened, jaw flexing once before he spoke. “I didn’t ghost you.”
I scoffed. Loudly. “Oh, right, you just vanished into thin air. Like a magician. Or a coward.”
He glanced at me, the muscle in his cheek twitching. “I had my reasons.”
“And I bet they were so noble,” I said with a dramatic eye roll. “Let me guess—‘It was for your own good, Deliah.’” I put on a mocking, deep voice. “Classic male cop-out.”
“You done?” he muttered, eyes flicking to mine again, slower this time.
“Not even close.”
The air thickened between us like a storm rolling in. I leaned back in my seat, arms crossed, heat prickling across my skin. “You acted like I mattered,” I snapped. “Then left me like I was just another girl in your rotation.”
His jaw clenched. “It wasn’t easy for me either.”
“Oh, please, you disappeared, Damion. Don’t try to rewrite it.”
“I left because I saw what was happening with you,” he said, voice low but laced with steel. “With him.”
My stomach knotted.
“You were falling apart. And I wasn’t about to stand there and watch it.”
“So instead you ran?” I laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “Wow. How heroic.”
“I didn’t run. I stepped back,” he snapped. “I gave you space to figure your shit out.”
“You didn’t give me anything,” I said, leaning in now, eyes burning into him. “You took the one good thing I had—us—and disappeared without a word. That’s not stepping back, Damion. That’s fucking off.”
His knuckles whitened on the wheel.
“I knew if I stayed,” he said, eyes fixed ahead, “and watched you go back to him… I’d never look at you the same.”
