Chapter 4What If We Win
About 2,051 characters (~365 words) — this is Chapter 4, the last of the 4 free chapters on EditWrx Reads.
That was how we started.
Aside from our teammates and close industry insiders, our relationship was never made public online. Devin insisted on keeping it that way. While I told myself it was his choice, there were quiet nights when the secrecy stung.
Whenever I brought it up, he would pull me onto his lap and wrap his arms around me.
“What’s so great about being under the public microscope?” he’d say dismissively. “Do you really want strangers stopping you at the grocery store just to interrogate you about being my girlfriend?”
He was right, in a way. I wasn't an influencer; I was just behind-the-scenes staff. With his fanatical female fanbase, going public could have turned my life into a living nightmare.
Yet on the night he lifted another regional trophy, his ex-girlfriend—Lacey, a prominent broadcast caster who had just returned from overseas—posted a sprawling, nostalgic letter on social media.
“Devin and I met back in 2009.
Watching him take the championship today brought a sudden ache to my chest. The boy who used to stay by my side through everything has finally grown up.
He has a sensitive stomach. Sometimes, when I set a glass of warm milk on the nightstand, I realize that the boy who used to pout and beg me to comfort him isn't there anymore.
I’m posting this just to honor the past, I suppose. He and I can never go back to what we were~”
Beneath the post, thousands of comments flooded in:
“Omg, get back together! Please!”
“The unresolved tension is killing me!”
“Lacey, please take him back, you’re the only girl we’ll ever accept as our queen!”
A dull, suffocating weight settled over my chest. I clicked my phone screen off.
The heavy front door swung open. The championship squad was back from their afterparty.
Devin, dressed in his black team jacket, furrowed his sharp brows as he tossed his keys onto the table and looked at me lazily.
“What are you throwing a tantrum for?” he asked. “Aren’t you going to bed?”
He knew exactly what was happening on the internet.
He just didn't care enough to say a single word of explanation.