| no catch , mjj | ✓

☆ - 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯.

The next morning arrives, the sun's rising rays seeping through the windows in the form of a sliver due to the curtains blocking the rest out. Leigh-Anne wakes up and rolls over, grinning a bit at the delicious soreness in her muscles from last night, and she reaches over to the other side of the bed for the man who had caused it.

However, instead of smooth, coffee-colored skin, all her fingers find are wrinkled skeets that smell like him. She sits up, confusion contorting her face into a furrowed expression.

"Michael?..."

No answer.

She glances over at her alarm clock, eyes slightly widening. "Shit! My flight is leaving at noon!" That only gives her about three hours to get up, get to the airport, and board. Her mother always told her to be there an hour or so early in case the airport is busy, and it almost always is.

'Okay, but where the hell did he go, though?...'

Leigh-Anne grabs her phone off the nightstand from under the bag of rice, turns it on, and breathes a sigh of relief when the screen lights up. Thank God it's working again. No way will she have time to go get a new one—not before her flight now, at least.

There's no missed calls or texts from Michael. There's only a text from Shauna, asking what happened to her last night.

His clothes are gone as well.

She climbs out of bed, a sense of dread washing over her. 'No... Michael surely wouldn't have left like that... Not without saying goodbye.'

Leigh-Anne grabs her clothes she's going to change into and pads barefoot out into the kitchen, and then into the empty living room. Heading into the bathroom, she sets her fresh clothes down and wraps her arms around herself to prepare for the disappointment she knows is coming.

Not even a note was left behind. Michael was gone.

A troubling daze reaches her chest where the pain throbs, making it hard for her to breathe. 'It isn't supposed to be like this. It isn't supposed to hurt this badly. We were supposed to walk away from this and still be the best of friends, but can I do that now?'

She grips the bathroom counter and stares at her reflection in the mirror. 'No. I can't go back to the way things were.'

She takes a longer shower than she thought she would, wasting some of her time sobbing into her loofah instead of getting her shit together for the most important trip of her life—across the globe to Sudan.

She should've seen this coming. Michael had promised her just one night of sex to erase that bastard Andre from her mind, and he'd done just that. She can barely remember anyone she's been with before last night.