Olivia Parker 
My friend Jenna deleted Marcus from her phone the night she moved his last box to his car. She felt proud for about an hour. Three weeks later she needed to text a plumber. She typed Marcus’s old number by pure muscle memory instead. Her thumb still knew all ten digits even though his name … Read more
My friend Maddie called me at 6am the morning after Nolan proposed on their porch. She was crying, but not the way I expected. She said yes the second he opened the box. Then she spent the whole night wide awake with her stomach in knots. By sunrise she felt something closer to dread than … Read more
Theo and I spent three years long distance, him in Denver and me in Austin. Most nights we only had a phone screen between us. I could type “I miss you and I’m scared about my job” without flinching. Saying that same sentence out loud made my throat close. It took me years to notice … Read more
Theo texted me “wanna hang out this weekend” nine days after we matched on an app. I stared at that word for way too long. Hang out could mean anything from a movie to a group bonfire with strangers. I did not know which one to expect that Friday. We were both twenty-four and neither … Read more
At 4:15 pm I sat on our fire escape holding my phone. A recruiter had just offered me a great role in Seattle. Caleb and I had only been living in the same city for one year. Seattle would have meant putting the miles back between us. We had only just finished closing the distance … Read more
Last Thursday at 7:30 pm I was folding his laundry in silence. Nate walked in and said I never just tell him things. I froze holding one of his folded t shirts mid air. I thought folding his laundry was already telling him something. We had been together five years with different love languages. That … Read more
My friend Dani called me at 6:52 on a Wednesday evening. She was still sitting in her car outside Trader Joe’s. Marcus had proposed right there with the engine still running. He said he could not wait one more single day. Dani was laughing and crying at the exact same time. She kept saying she … Read more
Last Tuesday at 9:15 pm I found six takeout menus on the table. I had planned every single one of them myself. My boyfriend Theo sat scrolling his phone with no plan in sight. He never once suggested where we should go for dinner. That night something in me finally snapped a little. I was … Read more
My friend Priya heard his door close at 11:40 on a Tuesday night. Tyler still lives four doors down the same hallway. They broke up in March, but neither lease was up until August. Five months of hearing his footsteps outside her own door. She called me the night she saw his car in the … Read more
My friend Jenna called me at 8:20 on a Saturday, already annoyed. Marcus had just announced golf instead of visiting her sister. They have been married for four years and this fight is not new. It shows up almost every weekend in some slightly different shape. Jenna wants shared time and Marcus wants his own … Read more
