Under the Influence

Tough Love*

Shawnie's POV

After a long day at work, I got back home to my house in Woodland Hills. The quiet hit me the second I walked in. Not heavy or suffocating. Just quiet, and it was peaceful.  For the first time in a while, I could actually hear my own thoughts without something—or someone—interrupting them.

The house was still mostly empty. No furniture in the living room, nothing in the dining area. Just open space and bare walls. It should've felt cold, but it didn't. It felt like a reset as I could finally breathe.

My room was the only place that felt lived in. My bed, my laptop, my charger tangled on the nightstand. That's really all I needed right now anyway. A place to sleep. A place to think. Everything else could wait.

I walked into the kitchen and finally turned my phone back on, setting it down on the counter.

I had turned it off the night before. Chris had been calling nonstop, and I didn't want to deal with him,  whatever version of him I was going to get.

I just needed silence, but as soon as I set my phone down—ding.

Then again.

ding ding ding ding—

My brows furrowed as the sound kept going, rapid, back-to-back, filling up the quiet space. I stood there for a second, just staring at it, then I walked over and picked it up.

Forty-two messages. All from Chris.

My stomach dropped a little.

No missed calls from anyone else. No texts from anyone else. Just him. I exhaled slowly, rubbing my thumb along the side of my phone.

He must've checked the cameras and seen that I moved out. I hated doing it like that. I did. But I didn't know how he would react if he were there, and I also knew that if I didn't do it that way, I probably wouldn't have left at all.

And that scared me more.

I opened the messages. They were all over the place. Some of them soft—

I miss you.
I love you.
We can fix this.

Others...Not so much.

You really did this?
That's fucked up.
Fuck you.
You acting like a bitch.

My grip tightened slightly around my phone.

It was like reading five different versions of him all at once. Hurt. Angry. Sad. Defensive. Regretful. I didn't even know which one was real. Maybe all of them were.

I swallowed, shaking my head lightly.

I don't even know how to respond to this. Part of me wanted to text back. Part of me didn't want to open that door at all, because once I did, we'd be right back in it, and I wasn't sure I had the energy for that again.

I set my phone back down on the counter, and right on cue, it started ringing.

I closed my eyes for a second. I already knew it was him.

I stared at the screen, watching his name sit there, vibrating against the counter. I already knew how this could go. It could be calm. It could be an apology. Or it could turn into a full-blown argument in under thirty seconds. With him... it was never predictable.

My fingers hovered over the phone, then I exhaled.

I can't keep avoiding this.

I picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Shawnie, I have been calling and texting you all night. Why haven't you responded to me?" He asks, sounding calm.