The terms were set. It wasn't a discussion, not really—just another quiet surrender wrapped in the illusion of fairness.
Cameron sat on her bed, phone in hand, staring at the list of names Jasmine had asked her to erase. No ultimatums, no raised voice, no cruel tone. Just a soft suggestion that came laced with consequence.
It was framed like trust, like commitment. A "show me" moment. But it felt more like a cleanup job—scrubbing the past until it was palatable enough to be allowed a future.
Some of the names were flings. Others were barely even that—blurry faces from loud bars, saved under vague descriptors like "Red Lipstick" or "Tattoo Girl." Still, those names had made Cameron feel like she had options. Like she wasn't entirely devoured by Jasmine. They were evidence of a version of her that had agency, even if that agency had always been a mask for desperation.
Her thumb hovered over the first name, "Maya"
Delete.
Then "Carey." God, Carey.
Delete.
It should have been easy. None of them had meant anything—at least not like Jasmine did. But watching the list shrink, one name after another disappearing into digital ether, she felt something tighten in her chest. It wasn't loss. Not exactly. It was something harder to define. Like erasure.
Jasmine sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, not looking over her shoulder, but present enough to weigh on her like gravity. "If you need to think about it this much," she said, voice cool but sharp, "maybe you're not as serious as you say you are."
Cameron's jaw flexed. There it was again—doubt disguised as honesty.
She scoffed, stabbing her thumb against the screen until the last few names vanished. The screen was blank. Empty. And somehow, that emptiness felt louder than it should have. "Happy?" she asked, not looking up.
Jasmine smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I'll do my part now."
Her part.
As if this was an equal exchange.
But Jasmine didn't pick up the phone. She didn't start typing. She stood up, stretched, and said she was going to her place. "It's better in person," she said. "I owe him that."
Cameron didn't argue. She didn't ask to come. She just nodded like she understood, even though a sick feeling twisted in her gut.
When the door clicked shut behind Jasmine, Cameron sat in the quiet and imagined the conversation.
She pictured Jasmine entering the apartment her and Andrew shared with that nervous half-smile she always wore when she had bad news. She'd sit on the edge of the couch, hands folded in her lap, apologizing with her eyes before her mouth could speak. Cameron could practically hear the softness in her voice, the way she'd say "I'm so sorry" like it meant something, like it didn't come with a trail of devastation behind it.
She imagined Jasmine saying she had feelings for someone else—maybe she wouldn't even say her name. Maybe she'd keep Cameron a secret just a little longer.
She imagined Andrew—reasonable, kind, confused. Hurt, but not dramatic. That's how Jasmine liked her men. Polite heartbreakers. Easy to leave without a scene.
When Jasmine returned hours later, she didn't speak right away. She just dropped her bag near the door and stood still, like she wasn't sure what version of herself to be now.
"It's done," she said finally.
Cameron didn't ask for details. She didn't want the sanitized summary.
The words should have felt like a victory. But all they did was settle into the pit in her stomach, joining everything else she'd swallowed.
Jasmine curled up on the couch and scrolled through her phone in silence. Her fingers twitched, paused, hovered—like she was waiting for a message that wasn't coming. Like maybe she'd already started missing the person she just walked away from.
Cameron stood in the doorway and watched her. And for a moment, she felt like a thief holding something she hadn't actually stolen.
And just like that, Jasmine started staying over.
At first, it made sense—she and Andrew had lived together, and now she had nowhere else to be. It was practical. Logical. Unavoidable.
But the apartment wasn't built for two. Cameron had designed her space around solitude, not companionship. It wasn't the furniture—it was the silence. The rituals. The absence of anyone else's weight in her life.
Now, the air felt crowded. The sound of Jasmine brushing her teeth in the bathroom. Her clothes hanging on the back of the chair. Her perfume lingering on the pillow even after she'd gone to the kitchen for water.
It was Cameron's space. But it didn't feel like hers anymore.
The first night Jasmine stayed over, Cameron lay awake long after Jasmine had fallen asleep, staring at the ceiling. Jasmine's breathing was soft and even beside her, warm under the blanket they now shared.
This wasn't how she thought it would feel.
For so long, Cameron had fantasized about this—about waking up with Jasmine beside her, about shared mornings and messy hair and stolen kisses over coffee. But now that it was real, it didn't feel romantic. It felt premature. Like someone had hit fast forward on a story that hadn't earned its second act.
She turned her head slowly to look at Jasmine's sleeping face. Peaceful. Unbothered.
Cameron wasn't sure what she expected—some kind of magic? Some revelation? But all she felt was the pressure of a promise she hadn't actually made, and the slow, creeping suspicion that Jasmine wasn't here because she loved her.
She was here because she had nowhere else to go.
And Cameron had let her in, because she always did.
She rolled over, away from Jasmine, curling toward the edge of the bed. She stared at the wall, eyes open, heart unsettled.
The space they shared now was full of echoes.
And every time Jasmine moved in her sleep, Cameron wondered how long it would be before she disappeared again.