"Boyfriend free" was the name of the app, and Chloe had downloaded it at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday, half-laughing, half-crying into a pint of salted caramel ice cream.
For three weeks, Chloe felt light . She walked through the city without scanning crowds. She checked her phone without that low thrum of disappointment. She bought flowers for her own apartment, cooked elaborate meals for one, and laughed with friends in a way that didn’t feel like performing happiness. boyfriend free
Chloe thought it was a joke. Then she tried it. "Boyfriend free" was the name of the app,
She thought about Jake’s laugh. Marcus’s stupid joke about the raccoon in the trash can. The grocery store stranger’s eyes—she couldn’t even picture them anymore. She walked through the city without scanning crowds
Then went the man she’d never dated but who’d taken up too much space in her head anyway—the one who’d smiled at her once in a grocery store and become a fantasy for six lonely months. The app asked, “Has he ever actually been your boyfriend?” She clicked “No.” The app replied, “Then he’s already free. But we’ll free you, too.” And just like that, she stopped wondering what if.
Her phone buzzed with twelve backlogged messages, twelve ghosts returning at once. She winced, then smiled—actually smiled, for the first time in weeks.
And for the first time, she didn’t need an app to decide what came next.