Chapter 2Crawfish Season

That night, Caleb, who rarely posted on Instagram, suddenly uploaded a story.

In the video, he was meticulously peeling an entire bowl full of crawfish meat. Then, he pushed the bowl in front of a pretty girl wearing a breezy top and light-ash-brown hair.

The moment the girl smiled, puckered her lips, and leaned in, the video abruptly ended.

I silently liked the video, then turned off my phone screen and stared blankly at the crawfish in my hands.

Actually, I had thought about Caleb getting a new girlfriend.

I just didn't expect that day to come so quickly.

When we broke up, Caleb’s eyes had been red. He'd bitten his lip hard and said to me through clenched teeth, "Maya, if you dare find another man, I will haunt you even as a ghost!"

Caleb said he would wait for me forever. I believed him.

But six months later, he had a new girlfriend.

I silently ate a piece of the crawfish I'd peeled by hand. It tasted a bit sour and bitter.

It used to be so delicious. Caleb and I would go eat it so many times every summer.

But eating it today, I felt the taste was off. Something was always missing.

I silently opened my chat with Caleb, wanting to ask him if the crawfish tasted different this time.

But just as I finished typing the message, I realized something. Caleb seemed to have a new girlfriend. It probably wasn't a good idea for an ex like me to keep bothering him.

I slowly deleted the text in the chat box, letter by letter. Just as I deleted the last word, I saw that Caleb's profile picture, which hadn't changed in years, had updated. It was now a picture of that girl with the light-ash-brown hair.

The next second, I saw a message from Caleb pop up: "Let's just delete each other."

"I'm worried my girlfriend will get upset."

I didn't reply. I stared at those two sentences for a long time. I wanted to reply "Okay," but I was afraid I'd get the red exclamation mark showing I'd been blocked.

I thought about it for a long time. I didn't reply, nor did I block or delete Caleb.

Whatever. He had definitely already deleted me anyway.

Whether I deleted him or not didn't really matter.

I silently spat out the crawfish meat in my mouth, losing my appetite for the remaining six pounds.

I went to the kitchen to wash my hands. When I came out, a text message popped up on my phone screen.

I glanced at it casually and saw it was from Caleb. It just said: "Test."

It was a random, out-of-context message, and it was immediately "unsent" with blazing speed.

I was confused and sent a question mark back.

The next second, a red exclamation mark popped up in the chat box. Message Not Delivered.

This time, Caleb had truly blocked me.

I held my phone in silence for a long time. Ten minutes later, after some thought, I sent a message to the account that had blocked me: "Well, I guess I can move on too."

I hit send, and it went through successfully.

There was no red exclamation mark in front of the sentence.

I froze for a moment, then belatedly realized what had happened. Caleb hadn't deleted me. He had just blocked me, then unblocked me a moment later.

Caleb's status showed "typing..." for a long time.

He typed for ages before I finally saw him send: "Oh."

"Suit yourself."

I looked at those words, my eyelashes trembling slightly. I tapped on his profile picture and stared at it for a while, then pursed my lips and deleted him from my contacts.

It was just like eating too much crawfish; it’s bad for your body.

Caleb had a girlfriend now. It was time for me to look forward, too.