Next Time, Don't Bother Showing Up Chapter 1

My boyfriend Noah Carter and I had a plan: turn our college's fourteen-day outdoor orientation into a fourteen-episode documentary series about us.

For the eleventh time, Noah left me alone on the training field. His childhood friend Claire Moore had called him in tears, saying she'd been vomiting and was lying in the camp clinic alone and scared.

Waiting for him to come back, I missed the camp's only sunset team drill and the closing long take I'd spent two weeks preparing.

That evening, he sent me a photo. Claire sat in a dessert shop outside camp, a smoothie and a slice of strawberry cake in front of her, cheeks pink and looking happier than anyone else in the place.

Noah texted back: "The nurse said it's just stomach cramps. Relaxing will help her recover faster. I took her out for some air. Don't overthink it."

Before, I would have asked when he was coming back. This time, I crossed "Couples Finale" off the Day Fourteen script and replaced it with two words.

"Just me."

The next day, he came rushing over to tell me Claire had a fever. I set up the camera for a solo shot without even looking up. "Noah, you don't have to report to me every time. From now on, where you go and who you choose to be with have nothing to do with me."

He finally panicked.

What he didn't know was that that night, I hadn't just canceled our orientation series. I'd scrapped every plan I'd ever made for a life with him.

* * *

"Erin Bennett, are you really taking something this small all the way to a breakup?"

Noah blocked the exit to the training field and pressed a hand down on my tripod. "Claire threw up three times last night, and everyone else in her cabin was at the evening program. She called me. Was I supposed to just ignore her?"

I slowly pried his fingers off. "Yes. The camp has a nurse on duty, program instructors, cabin coordinators, and an emergency line. Even if she really needed company, it shouldn't have been a guy with a girlfriend sitting with her all night."

Noah's face darkened. "When did you get so mean? It's her first time away from home for a residential program. I'm the only person here she trusts. You have your roommate, your film crew, and plenty of people willing to help. You can manage without me once."

Once.

I nearly laughed.

On endurance-test day, Claire said her new hiking boots had rubbed her heel raw, and he carried her to the clinic. On cabin-inspection day, she said she didn't know how to make her bed or organize her gear, and he abandoned the time-lapse he'd promised to shoot for me to spend a full hour teaching her outside her cabin. On campfire sing-off night, an instructor gave her a couple of notes, and she ran crying into the equipment shed. He stayed up until midnight explaining it to the instructor on her behalf.

Then came the low blood sugar, the sunburn, the stomachache, fights with her family, and drama with her cabinmates.

Eleven days, eleven reasons. And now he was telling me it was just once.

I looked up at him. "Noah, do you even remember what today is?"

He frowned and paused for two seconds. "Day twelve of orientation."

"And?"

He glanced at the date on his watch, and his expression went rigid.

Today was our two-year anniversary.

Six months ago, we'd sat on the roof outside our high school's photography room and promised to film a special anniversary episode of our orientation series on this exact day. He'd wrapped his arms around me and grinned. "We'll film our way from high school to college, then graduation, careers, and our wedding. I'll be the only leading man your camera ever sees."

He finally remembered. "Erin, I've been exhausted lately. It just slipped my mind. I'll make it up to you tonight. Pick any gift you want."

"Don't bother."

"What?"

"I don't need a gift, and I don't need you."

I slung the tripod over my shoulder and walked past him. He reached for me, but I sidestepped. His hand closed on empty air, and for the first time, real unease flickered in his eyes.

"You're serious?"

"Of course."

"Just because Claire's been sick?"

I stopped but didn't turn around. "Because I finally admitted to myself that you were never going to show up."

The assembly whistle blew from the other side of the field. I walked toward the returning crowd. The only item left on my Day Twelve shot list was one entry: solo monologue.

Buried in my cloud folder were eleven screenshots he'd never seen. I'd left room for him in every frame. In every one, I stood alone.