The Shattered Anchor

Lydia’s pov.

The wet, rhythmic slap of skin against skin echoed loudly through the thin drywall.

I stared up at the dark, popcorn ceiling of my dorm room, my fingernails digging sharp half-moons into my palms. The heavy, relentless thud of the headboard banging against the shared wall vibrated straight down into the springs of my mattress. My best friend—the guy I had been secretly, desperately in love with for years—was next door, fucking my roommate.

Blair’s moans spiked into a sharp, breathy scream. She chanted Enzo’s name, her voice carrying clearly through the metal air vents. I could hear the wet friction, the exact moment he thrust his cock deeper into her pussy. The sounds were raw, explicit, and unapologetic. Louder than usual tonight. It felt incredibly deliberate. Blair knew I was lying in here in the dark. She wanted me to hear every single gasp, to listen to the graphic, filthy details of her victory over me.

I closed my stinging eyes. I just finished a brutal twelve-hour double shift at the campus coffee shop. My feet ached, my lower back throbbed with a dull pain, and the cheap caffeine I chugged at four o'clock was still wiring my brain, refusing to let my exhausted body sleep.

I turned my head on the pillow. A sliver of pale moonlight caught the framed photograph sitting on the corner of my cluttered desk. My parents and my older brother, Desmond, frozen in time, smiling under a bright summer sun.

They had been gone for five long years.

A drunk driver crossed the center line when I was fifteen. That single, horrific afternoon turned my entire life into a graveyard. The suffocating silence of my empty childhood house used to crush my chest.

Enzo was the only person who refused to let me drown in that silence.

He used to climb through my bedroom window, holding me on my floor while I sobbed until I threw up from the grief. He stayed by my side when the rest of the town eventually moved on and went back to their normal lives. He became my anchor. My lifeline. He was the only piece of home I had left in this world.

That deep, agonizing dependency was exactly why I followed him here to Kingsmont University. I threw away a prestigious, full-ride scholarship to my absolute dream school just so I wouldn't have to face a single morning without him nearby.

What a massive, pathetic fool I was.

Now, I was just the broke scholarship girl dragging herself through two minimum-wage jobs to survive, while Enzo lived the carefree life of a wealthy college playboy. Over the years, I watched him cycle through dozens of girls. I trained myself to bite my tongue, sit back, and wait for them to disappear. They always did. A month or two, and they vanished into thin air. I justified the pain to myself. I pretended they were just temporary distractions, warm bodies he used because he wasn't quite ready to settle down with something real. With me.

But Blair was different.

Blair didn't act like a temporary distraction. She acted like she owned him. She felt like a permanent replacement.

Another piercing moan ripped through the wall, followed by a loud, guttural groan from Enzo. The sound made my skin crawl. Nausea mixed with a sharp, blinding wave of rage.

The physical ache in my spine and the sleep deprivation finally collided. Something fragile inside my chest snapped in half.

I threw my heavy blanket off and shoved myself up from the mattress so fast the room spun. I didn't care. I marched out of my room and into the dim hallway of our shared suite. I raised my fist and hammered against Blair’s locked door with everything I had. My knuckles bruised against the cheap wood.

"Keep it the fuck down, you two!" I yelled.

My voice cracked. It sounded raw, heavy with all the bitter frustration I had been bottling up for weeks.

"Some of us actually have to work for a living in the fucking morning!"

The bed frames stopped banging immediately. The moans cut off.

A suffocating, heavy silence replaced the noise. It pressed against my eardrums, thick with tension.

I didn't stick around to hear them whisper. I spun on my bare heel, marched back into my bedroom, and slammed my door shut hard enough to rattle the hinges. I collapsed back onto my bed, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, trying to force my racing heart to slow down.

Five minutes passed. Then, a sharp, aggressive knock sounded at my door.

I sat up, brushing my messy hair out of my face. I foolishly assumed it was Enzo coming to apologize for waking me up. I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open.

It wasn't Enzo.

Blair leaned against my doorframe. She wore one of Enzo’s oversized black t-shirts. It barely covered her upper thighs. Her blonde hair was a messy, tangled halo, and her chest heaved slightly. She looked like a smug, flawless model stepping right out of a magazine.

The arrogant smirk playing on her lips made me want to slap the look right off her face.

"You're very grumpy tonight, Lydia," she said. She didn't wait for an invitation. She pushed her shoulder past mine and strutted right into my personal space.

"I'm tired, Blair. I just want to sleep. Get out," I said. My voice came out flat, drained of any fight.

She ignored my demand. She leaned her hip against my cheap wooden dresser, crossing her arms. She stared at me with this sugary, fake pity that made the bile rise in my throat.

"Is it really the noise that's bothering you?" she asked, tilting her head. "Or is it the person making me scream?"

A sudden flush of heat crawled up my neck. My cheeks burned with an intense, suffocating humiliation I couldn't hide. She knew. She saw right through the pathetic facade I had maintained for years.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied, breaking eye contact and staring at the floor.

"Oh, come on. I'm not blind," Blair whispered, her voice dropping into a cruel, mocking register. "Just admit it. You’re in love with him."

I clenched my jaw, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a reaction.

"Every time he touches me, you feel like you're dying inside, don't you?" she asked.

I couldn't draw a breath. The oxygen in the tiny bedroom vanished.

I looked past Blair's shoulder and saw movement in the hallway.

Enzo stood there.

His dark hair stuck out in every direction. His jeans were unbuttoned, and his broad chest was bare. He stood frozen in the doorway, staring right at me.

He heard everything. Every single word she just threw at me.

My stomach plummeted into a bottomless pit. I waited for him to speak. I waited for the boy who held me while I cried over my dead parents to step into the room and defend me. I waited for him to tell Blair she was out of line, to tell her to shut her mouth.

He did nothing.

He shifted his weight, looking deeply uncomfortable, like a bystander witnessing a car wreck he wanted no part of. He dropped his gaze to the floor, refusing to look me in the eye. His cowardice, his silence, confirmed everything Blair had just said. He chose her.

"Get out," I told her. My voice trembled now. I hated myself for showing weakness, but I couldn't stop the shake in my hands.

Blair chuckled.

"Both of you. Get the fuck out of my room," I snapped.

Blair let out a mean, soft laugh, pushing off my dresser and sauntering past me into the hall. Enzo lingered for a fraction of a second. His mouth parted like he wanted to offer some lame excuse, but he closed it. He turned his back on me and followed Blair into her room.

I slammed the door and locked it. I collapsed against the wood, sliding down to the floor. I stayed awake for hours, burning with embarrassment, replaying the cowardly look on his face, obsessing over everything I should have said and everything I didn’t. I didn't even notice when exhaustion finally dragged me into a fitful sleep.

The next morning was beyond suffocating.

I delayed leaving my room for as long as I could. I sat on the edge of my bed until I realized I needed coffee to survive my next shift.

I dragged myself out into the shared kitchen and walked right into Enzo.

He looked vibrant. He looked like a guy who just got ten hours of amazing sleep. I, on the other hand, looked like a walking ghost. The dark bags under my eyes felt heavy, and my skin was deathly pale.

"Hey, Lyd," he said, offering an easy smile.

He grabbed the pitcher from the fridge and poured himself a glass of orange juice. He was acting like the blowout argument last night never even happened. Like he didn't stand by and let his girlfriend verbally slaughter me.

"My mom called today," he said casually, leaning against the counter. "She wants to host a dinner for Blair this weekend. She wants to officially meet her."

A sharp, icy spike of pain pierced my chest. It physically hurt to swallow.

Enzo never brought a girl home to his parents. Never. Not once in all the years we had been friends. I was the only girl who had ever sat at his family's dining table. I used to secretly covet that fact. I convinced myself I held a special, unbreakable place in his life until he was ready to make me his.

"That's nice," I said. I kept my expression blank and my voice dead.

"I want you to come with us," he said. He beamed at me, looking genuinely proud of his idea, like he was doing me a massive favor. "It’ll be less awkward if you’re there, you know. You can even study in the library at my house while we do the dinner."

I froze, my hand hovering over the coffee pot.

He was serious. He actually expected me to ride in his car, sit in his family’s library like a stray dog, and wait while he played house with the girl who humiliated me. He was sheerly oblivious to my pain. He didn't care about my feelings. I wasn't his best friend anymore. I was just a fixture. A convenient background prop that came along for the ride.

He was serious about Blair. I was officially being replaced.

"I can't go, Enzo. I'm busy," I said, turning my back on him.

"Busy with what?" he argued, his tone dipping into confusion. "You always come home with me on weekends."

"Not anymore. I have plans," I snapped. The harshness in my tone echoed off the kitchen tiles. I don’t owe you any explanation for how I choose to live my life.

I walked away before he could open his mouth again. I marched straight into my bedroom, locked the door, and grabbed my phone off the nightstand. I opened my banking app.

The screen loaded. I stared at the meager balance, calculating every penny from my academic scholarship and my tips from the coffee shop. I mentally subtracted food and gas. It wasn't a fortune, but it was just enough to cover a security deposit on a tiny, rundown room somewhere else.

I looked up at the thin drywall separating my bed from his. I couldn’t spend another night in this suite. I was done being the backup friend. I was done bleeding out for a guy who couldn't even defend me.

Tonight, I'm leaving.