it's all waiting there for you

Your feet ached from the heels you’d squeezed yourself into earlier that night, your mascara had probably migrated somewhere around your cheekbones, and your fingers hit backspace more than any other key as you stumbled through half-coherent replies to anyone Facebook had reminded to wish you a happy birthday.

By the time you’d made it through the seemingly endless stream of notifications, you decided it was time for your annual reminder on why you never opened the app for anything besides this exact task.

It was nearing three-thirty in the morning, and you’d been telling yourself you were getting off the couch and going to bed for the last ten minutes without making any real effort to move. Instead, your thumb kept scrolling despite your better judgement, your brain pleasantly fuzzy from one too many birthday shots.

And then you froze, thumb hovering over the cracked screen as Facebook loaded another section.

People You May Know

Normally, you would’ve scrolled right past it without a second thought. This time, however, you didn’t when a particular profile made your brain grind to a complete halt.

You had no idea whether it was actually true or just one of those Facebook myths people swore by, but you’d once hear that the profiles showing up under People You May Know had looked at yours recently.

And if that was true, why the hell had your former high school music teacher been looking at your profile?

Your fuzzy eyes narrowed at the tiny profile picture. There was no mistaking the familiar mess of curls, now streaked with silver, or the faint stubble he’d never really grown back when he used to pace the front of the music room with an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder.

Eddie Munson.

Or rather Mr. Munson. At least, that’s what you’d spend four years calling him.

For a ridiculous second, you simply stared. Then, before your drunken brain had the chance to think better of it, your thumb tapped the add friend button.

Waking up with a raging headache – the kind you’d never seemed to get back when you were sixteen – was easily the worst gift your twenty-fifth birthday had given you.

Well, the second worst – because the first was the particular notification waiting for you on your lock screen when you reached over to silence your blaring alarm.

God, no.

No, no, no.

Your stomach dropped and the only thing you could do was stare at it until your phone’s screen dimmed and went black. And then you tapped the screen, and stared a little longer.

Yeah, you were never, ever drinking again.

Warm sunlight spilled through the gap in your curtains, illuminating the mess you’d made at four in the morning when you’d finally stumbled into your bedroom before collapsing face-first onto your mattress.

Instead of throwing back the comforter and begrudgingly cleaning up the hurricane that had swept through your room, you let yourself flop back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. Maybe if you stared hard enough, it’d crumble into big, heavy chunks and put you out of your misery. No such luck, unfortunately.

Your stomach, however, had decided to punish you instead.

One second you were lying perfectly still. The next, you were bolting upright and sprinting towards the bathroom, shoving strands of hair away from your face with one hand while still clutching your phone in the other.

The few blissful seconds of silence were interrupted by the sound of your buzzing against the tiled floor, and then once again.

“Please, God,” you groaned after flushing the toilet, letting your head fall back against the cool wall. “I am begging you. Just kill me.”

It was fine. Everything was alright.

The buzzing was probably Hayley flooding your phone with blurry pictures of the night before. Or maybe it was the cute guy you’d given your number to a couple of weeks ago finally deciding to text you.

You didn’t actually want to know.

As long as you didn’t look, there was still a microscopic chance last night’s Facebook-induced humiliation had been nothing more than an alcohol-fuelled hallucination.

Your phone buzzed three more times before the screen faded back to black once again, only to light back up when it started ringing. This, at least, was something you could handle. Answering the phone didn’t require unlocking the screen, and as long as you didn’t unlock it, Mr. Munson technically hadn’t accepted your friend request. That was how it worked, right? Probably.

Hopefully.

“Kill me, Hayley,” you whimpered as you swiped to answer the call.

“Only if you kill me too,” she mumbled back, her voice barely audible over the constant rustling on the other end of the line. “I just sent you the pictures, by the way.”

You squeezed your eyes shut. “Please tell me I don’t look cross-eyed in half of them.”

“…The sun is shining today,” she said eventually.

“Fucking hell.” You sighed, already knowing exactly what that meant.

“Listen–”

“I did something so fucking stupid, Hayley,” you groaned before you could stop yourself.

“Oh, no.” You could practically picture her pinching the bridge of her nose even before you told her what you had done. “What did you do this time?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

The line fell quiet for a few seconds before Hayley let out a long, suffering sigh followed by your name.

“Spill. Now.”

Suddenly, the tiny spiderweb tucked away in the corner of the bathroom ceiling looked infinitely more interesting than continuing this conversation.

“I… added my old high school music teacher on Facebook last night,” you admitted eventually.

“The hot one?”

“Hayley.”

Then your phone lit up with a FaceTime request. You briefly considered declining it, turning your phone off, and moving to a different continent. Because you just knew Hayley was going to make you share your screen and open the godforsaken blue app.

Against your better judgement, you answered anyway.

Hayley took one look at you and grimaced. “Jesus, you look like absolute dog shit.”

“Thank you, Hayley,” you deadpanned. “I feel like it too.”

“I told you not to order those extra shots.”

“Yeah, well…” You pushed yourself off the bathroom floor with a groan. “You didn’t exactly stop me either.”

Every muscle in your body protested as you shuffled over to the sink, twisting the tap open before splashing cold water over your face. While you reached for glass and filled it with some water, Hayley dragged you on an impromptu tour of her apartment ceiling as she wandered from one room to the next. The microphone crackled a few times as she propped her phone against something on the kitchen counter before pulling open the fridge.

“Share your screen. I wanna see him,” she commanded, scanning the shelves for something to eat before deciding she had absolutely nothing and swinging the door shut again.

“No.”

“Share. Your. Screen.”

You stared at your phone with pursed lips and narrowed eyes.

“Or I’m posting one of last night’s pictures on Instagram.” She crossed her arms over her chest, lifting an eyebrow in challenge. “The one where you’re cross-eyes and practically flashing your panties.”

“I was what–” You squeezed your eyes shut and pinched the bridge of your nose. “Fine. Fuck.”

Never in your life had you unlocked your phone so fast.

Screw Hayley for making your life a living hell, screw drunk-you for putting you in this situation, and while you were at it, screw Mark Zuckerberg and his stupid fucking app too.

As the screen-sharing countdown ticked from three, you swiped through your home screen until you found the blue icon.

Facebook opened to an E! News post about the latest celebrity breakup, followed by a collection of AI-generated images people had somehow decided were worthy of sharing on their stories. Your thumb hovered uncertainly over the bottom of the screen, caught somewhere between the Friends and Notifications tabs.

Then your eyes drifted upwards when you noticed a little red bubble sitting in the top-right corner of the screen.

“…No.”

“What?” Hayley frowned. “What happened?”

“Someone messaged me,” you whispered, your eyes glued to the notification as though looking away might somehow make it disappear.

“Open it.” Hayley’s face lit up from the tiny FaceTime window in the corner of your screen.

“Absolutely not.”

“What if it’s him?” she gasped, leaning closer to her own screen. “Come on, open it already!”

“Are you absolutely insane?” you whisper-shrieked, sounding more like a teenager sneaking a late-night phone call after bedtime than a twenty-five year old woman standing barefoot in her own bathroom. “What if it is him?”

“Exactly!” Hayley exclaimed. “Click on it!”

Your thumb slowly drifted towards the upper-right corner of the screen, hovering over the little red messenger bubble for far too long.

“Do it,” Hayley urged.

Biting your lip, you swallowed around the pounding heartbeat lodged somewhere in your throat and tapped the messenger icon.

One new conversation sat at the very top of the list. Your heart immediately sank somewhere into your stomach as your eyes landed on the name.

Eddie Munson

“Holy fucking shit,” you whispered.

“What?” Hayley breathed, immediately perking up. “Is that him?”

You didn’t bother answering. Your thumb hovered over his name for another second before you decided ripping the band-aid off all at once was better than dragging it out any longer. So, before you could talk yourself out of it again, you tapped the conversation.

The first message had been sent a little after eight in the morning.

Happy birthday! Hope you had a good one.

You stared at it for a moment. It was… completely harmless. Friendly, even. Perfectly normal.

And yet, the knot in your stomach refused to loosen just enough for you to take a breath as your eyes drifted to the second timestamp – sent two hours later.

Did you end up going to Arizona after graduation? How’s that treating you?

“There’s…” Your voice caught in your throat. “There’s two.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Hayley replied dryly.

“Shut up.”

“Did you tell him you were going to Arizona?”

“I-I guess?” You frowned. “I don’t even remember.”

Hayley stared at you for another second before pointing an accusing finger at your screen.

“He remembers where you went to college,” she said, a smug, knowing look slowly creeping across her face. “You graduated, what? Seven years ago?”

“I know.”

“And he remembers.”

“Yes, Hayley.” You rubbed a hand over your face. “I can see that.”

For a long moment, neither of you moved. Had it not been for the occasional crackle in the call or a passing car, you could’ve sworn the connection had frozen. Then Hayley smiled – not just any smile, but that slow, knowing smile that immediately made you suspicious.

“Don’t.”

“I haven’t even said anything!”

“You’re thinking loud enough.”

“So…” she drawled, folding her arms across her chest with infuriating satisfaction. “Are we gonna answer him, or what?”

“We? We aren’t doing anything.” You looked at her as though she’d completely lost her mind. “I’m deleting Facebook, changing my name, and moving to Antarctica.”

Hayley snorted. “Oh, please. Stop being so dramatic.”

“What am I supposed to say?” you continued, exasperated. “‘Thanks! I had a great birthday. nearly drank myself to death and accidentally added you. Arizona was a complete shitshow, but I survived. I’m back in Indiana now, though. Wanna grab a drink?’”

Hayley’s face contorted as an unimpressed expression spread over as your rambling finally came to an end. You took a shaky breath, completely failing to ignore the twitch that had started somewhere around your left eye.

“Well,” she said after a moment, thoughtfully scratching her chin. “Yeah. But maybe not with those exact words.”

The mirror reflected your wide-eyed panic right back at you as you chewed on you lower lip, desperately trying to gather your thoughts. With a quick swipe, you shoved Hayley’s little FaceTime window into the corner of the screen, sparing her from watching you actively unravel in your own bathroom.

Leaving the bathroom light glowing behind you, you hurried down the narrow hallway towards the kitchen. Hayley snorted at your theatrics before mumbling something about coffee sounding good herself.

“What the fuck am I supposed to say?” you muttered, setting your phone beside the grumbling machine before grabbing your favourite mug from the cupboard.

“Just be normal about it.” She shrugged as though that were the easiest thing in the word. “You’re a fully grown woman. Stop overreacting.”

You shot her a look. “Weren’t you the one having a complete meltdown last week because that hot guy spam-liked your Instagram?”

“Well… Yes.” She scratched absentmindedly at her temple, suddenly finding something very interesting on the ceiling. “But that was last week. Besides, we’re not talking about me.”

The porcelain mug clinked softly against the countertop as you set it down before pulling open one of the kitchen drawers and fishing out the emergency pack of cigarettes hidden behind a pile of takeaway menus.

Normally, you’d have been firmly against smoking indoors. It wasn’t the eighties anymore, and your plants certainly hadn’t signed up for second-hand smoke. Today, however, they were just going to have to deal with it.

The stove clicked a few times before blue flames bursts to life. You held the cigarette over the burner for a moment before the tip glowed orange. Turning the gas back off, you took a long drag, letting the bitter smoke settle in your lungs before slowly exhaling towards the extractor fan.

“What do I say?” you asked after a long moment, defeated as you leaned against the small kitchen island.

Your eyes drifted back to the open conversation. Just two, harmless messages, that was all – so why did it feel like you were about to sit an exam you hadn’t studied for?

“Why are you asking me?” Hayley frowned.

“Weren’t you the one who literally just said ‘are we answering him, or what?’”

Hayley glanced off to the side as if she were a character on The Office silently acknowledging an invisible camera before looking back at you and offering an entirely unapologetic shrug.

“Just…” She waved a hand. “I don’t know. ‘Hey! Thank you, Mr. Munson. How have you been?’ Keep it simple.”

“God, no.” You grimaced. “That sounds so lame.”

“Then why did you ask for my help?” Hayley sighed. “Seriously, though. Why are you freaking out so much?”

You let out a long breath, staring down at the cigarette between your fingers.

“Because–” You grimaced at the memory. “I used to fantasise about marrying him when I was fifteen.”

Hayley blinked at her phone before barking out a laugh so hard it made your speaker crackle.

“Damn. Was he that hot?” she snorted, her face twisting into something between disbelief and amusement. “I wish I’d had hot teachers in high school.”

You rolled your eyes, an exhausted sigh escaping you as you flicked the ash into the sink before reaching for your phone again. Without really thinking about it, you reopened Facebook and tapped the search bar.

The first thing you noticed when you tapped on his name was the ridiculous number of followers underneath his name. The second was the short bio sitting directly beneath it.

No, I won’t teach you how to play Wonderwall.

Your thumb drifted to his profile picture before pinching the screen apart.

“…Jesus Christ,” Hayley whispered. “I feel pregnant just looking at him.”

His hair, now threaded with streaks of dark grey, had been pulled back into a messy ponytail while a few stubborn curls framed the sides of his face. A fitted black t-shirt stretched across broad shoulders, one hand raised in the air with a beer bottle caught between ringed fingers while a cigarette rested carelessly between his smiling lips. The picture had clearly been taken at some backyard barbecue or summer party, all golden evening light and blurry figures in the background, but somehow the camera had still managed to capture the same crooked grin you remembered from high school.

“Imagine how I felt every Thursday when I was going through puberty.”

“Oh, I can imagine.” Hayley leaned so close to her phone that she was practically trying to climb through the screen. “Yeah, no. Don’t send what I told you to send.”

The two of you fell into a comfortable silence while the coffee machine became the only thing filling the room, steadily dripping dark coffee into the glass pot below.

“Okay.” Hayley finally broke the silence. “Just answer what he asked.”

Your teeth found your lower lip as you swiped back to the messenger app.

Hey! Thanks, I had a great birthday :)

Yeah, I did go to

Your thumb froze when three little dots appeared at the bottom of the conversation.

“Oh, no.”

It disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared, but neither you nor Hayley moved, both of you staring at the screen as though willing it to make up its mind. And then it came back.

“Just send it!” Hayley shrieked.

It took your thumbs another couple of seconds to cooperate, but eventually you managed to finish the message.

Hey! Thanks, I had a great birthday :)

Yeah, I did go to Arizona for a few years! I’m actually back in Indiana now. How have you been?

You hit send.

Then immediately locked your phone and tossed it onto the countertop. The screen was already cracked, one more wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“Hey! Did you just lock your phone?”

“I can’t look at it,” you whispered, grabbing the coffee pot and pouring yourself an entirely unreasonable amount into your mug. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

The phone buzzed against the countertop, and you froze all over again.

“Oh, God.”

“Did he answer?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“You think so?”

“I don’t know, Hayley! It buzzed!”

Despite every instinct screaming at you not to, you slowly reached for your phone again.

And Eddie’s name was nowhere to be seen on your locked screen. Instead, an Instagram notification of Hayley tagging you in a picture stared back at you.

“Well?”

“No, it was just you tagging me on Instagram.”

“Oh! Did it finally upload?” She tapped at her own screen. “Can you like it and comment? I don’t want it to flop.”

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered under your breath. “Sure, give me a sec.”

You took one last drag of your cigarette before putting it out beneath the running tap, watching the last curl of smoke disappear down the drain. With a quiet sigh, you tapped on the Instagram notification. Contrary to what you’d expected, Hayley had actually posted a cute picture of the two of you.

It had been taken early on in the evening, long before the three dozen shots you’d somehow managed to split between the two of you and a handful of your other friends. Your hair still looked good, your makeup hadn’t yet started melting off your face, and the smile you’d flashed at the camera was an effortless one.

The dress had done your boobs a lot of favours, too, without making it look like you’d been trying too hard.

“…I actually look pretty cute.”

“I know,” Hayley grinned. “I have an eye for these things.”

You double-tapped the picture without hesitation before typic out a quick ugh!!!! i love you!!!! thank you for the best birthday EVA and shared it to your own story for good measure.

The little black box reading Added to story had barely disappeared when another notification slid onto your screen.

Taking advantage of Hayley being too distracted liking and replying to every comment under her new post, you quickly swiped the Messenger notification away before you had the chance to read it and dwell on it and spiral all over again.

Not long after, Hayley mumbled something about hanging up to run a handful of errands she’d been putting off all week, making you promise to keep her updated on what she enthusiastically dubbed your sexy teacher romance – as though there would be any, but you promised anyway.

The second the FaceTime call disconnected, your apartment fell into a deafening silence.

You spent the rest of the afternoon doing everything in your power to pretend Facebook Messenger didn’t exist.

You folded the laundry that had been sitting in the basket for nearly two weeks, watered the plants lining your windowsill, vacuumed the living room, and even answered the handful of work emails you’d been deliberately ignoring since Thursday afternoon.

Every now and then your phone buzzed, and every time your heart leapt into your throat. Eventually, the constant anticipation became so exhausting that you gave up and switched your phone on Do Not Disturb.

By the time evening rolled around, you’d almost convinced yourself you’d stopped thinking about him.

A rerun of Pretty Little Liars played quietly in the background while you curled up on the couch with a blanket draped over your legs, your phone resting lazily in one hand as you absentmindedly scrolled through Instagram.

You’d been at it for nearly ten minutes before remembering the picture Hayley had posted earlier that morning, and curiosity got the better of you.

Tapping on your own profile, you opened your story and swiped up to see who had viewed it and liked it. The usual names filled the list – your mom, Hayley, a few old college friends.

Then your thumb stopped.

@ metalmunson

There was no way–

He hadn’t actually searched for you on Instagram, had he?

Before you could second-guess yourself, you tapped on the profile, and your breath caught all over again.

The first thing greeting you was a carousel of photos. The opening picture was a black and white close-up of him onstage, singing into a microphone with a guitar slung over his shoulder. Bright stage lights glowed behind him, silhouetting the familiar outline of his curls, tied back into a ponytail, and a silver earring dangling from one ear.

Jesus. You’d completely forgotten about the collection of earring he’d swap between every other week.

Tapping the picture, you swiped through the rest of the carousel. The remaining photos were a mixture of candid backstage moments, blurry concert shots, and moody, artistic pictures that somehow didn’t feel nearly as pretentious as they probably should have,

His profile wasn’t carefully curated in the slightest. Instead, it was filled with pictures of friends, the occasional beer, ironic mirror selfies captioned with things like am I doing this selfie thing right?, more guitars than any one person reasonably needed to own, and an alarming number of photos of the same scruffy dogs.

Apparently his name was Rocco and he’d been adopted from an animal shelter on one of Eddie’s trips back to his hometown, according to a post from 2021.

A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you continued scrolling.

Then your thumb slipped.

Before you had the time to register what had happened, a bright red heart appeared beneath the blurry concert photo posted all the way back in September of 2020.

“No, no, no.”

Your thumb immediately darted towards the heart before hovering uselessly above it. Even if you removed the like, he’d probably already seen the notification.

“…Fuck.”

You let your hand fall into your lap with a defeated groan. Someone needed to put you in a conservatorship immediately and permanently confiscate your phone before you embarrassed yourself any further.

Dragging a hand down the lower half of your face, you stared at the cracked screen in complete disbelief.

It was fine. Everything was fine. He’d liked your picture first. The picture of you and Hayley. The very one where your dress hugged your boobs just enough to make them look fantastic without crossing into trying way too hard territory. That had to count for something, right?

So, really – you were even. Kinda.

But still, a picture from 2020? Seriously?

Your attention drifted to one of the deeper cracks running across your phone screen, silently wondering whether it was possible to simply dissolve into the couch cushions and never resurface.

Then your phone buzzed.

metalmunson started following you.

You’d already dug your own grave; you might as well climb in and bury yourself at this point.

And so, with a resigned sigh, you tapped the blue Follow back button.

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