"Right." I swallowed. "You never asked me to wait. You just never made us public. Never talked about a future. Never said you liked me. Never said you loved me. You just let me guess on my own, wait on my own, lie to myself on my own."
I stopped beside a trash can and pulled the phone away from my ear.
"Valentine."
"Yeah."
"Have I ever told you I love you?"
A pause. "…You have."
"How many times?"
"I don't remember."
"Every single day." My throat ached. "Every morning when I woke up. Every night before I fell asleep. When I could see you. When I couldn't. Every single day."
He said nothing.
"How many times have you said it to me?"
Silence.
"Not once."
I pressed the phone back to my ear. My voice came out barely above a whisper.
"Valentine, I'm done waiting for you."
Then I hung up. His name flashed on the screen, the phone buzzing with an incoming call. I swiped it away and blocked the number.
The phone went silent.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and kept walking. An overpass stretched ahead. I climbed the steps. Below, traffic surged in both directions, taillights bleeding together into a river of red.
Halfway across, an old man crouched beside a few bundles of wilting roses.
"Flowers, miss?"