“My Friends Bet I Couldn’t Do Better Than You—I’m Just Proving Them Wrong,” She Said With A Smug Little Smile After I Caught Her Perched On Another Man’s Lap. I Didn’t Yell. I Didn’t Beg. I Just Looked At Her And Said, “Prove This Too.” Then I Took One Photo, Sent It To Her Parents With, “I Thought You Should See This,” And Walked Out. A Minute Later, My Phone Blew Up. She Was Calling In A Panic—Because Her Dad Had Already Opened The Message.

“That’s nice for them,” I said, aiming for neutral. “We had a great weekend, too. That hike was perfect.”

She put her phone down and looked at me, not with anger, but with a kind of theatrical pity.

“A hike, Alex. We packed sandwiches,” she said, like it was evidence of a crime. “It’s just different vibes.

You know? Your vibe is very stable. Very predictable.”

I should have said something then, but I’d heard variations of this before.

Chloe lived in a world of vibes, of aesthetics, of social currency, where love only counted if it could be posted and validated. My world was built on logic, on reliability, on being the guy who showed up and fixed things. I thought we balanced each other, but lately I’d started to feel like I was just ballast in her speeding hot-air balloon—necessary to keep her from flying away entirely, but dead weight all the same.

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