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It was late afternoon, on the very last Wednesday of August, when I realized Disney had been lying to me for quite some time about Happily Ever Afters.

Because, you see, I was four days into mine, and my prince was nowhere to be found.

Gone. Vanished.

“I’ll definitely never forget you,” he’d said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy,” he’d said.

“Please don’t lose contact. I need to see you again one day,” he’d said.

So why was I here, sitting at the kitchen counter and banging my head against a metaphorical wall, weighing up the pros and cons of sendingyet anothermessage to him?

Like, okay. Yes, if I sent another it’d be three in a row.Yesthat was semi-stalker level. But I could rationalize this. The first message he’d ignored was in response to his own text on Saturday night. He’d said good night, and I’d saidgood night. End of conversation. He wasn’t required to respond. So I could barely even count that.

Then the second message I’d sent didn’t exactlydemanda reply.

Sunday, 11:59 AM

Totally failed at sneaking home. Mom killed me. #worthit. Please don’t judge me for using a hashtag. I’m too cool to abide by your mundane social expectations.

Read Sunday, 2:13 PM

I mean, he could’ve glanced at that on his drive home and smiled, and not realized he was meant to text back, right? There wasn’t strictly a question there, so it was possible. Or maybe he’d seen it, gotten halfway through a reply, and been distracted by something.

Like a house fire. Or an alien abduction.

For four days.

Really, if you thought about it, I had to message him again. In a cool, casual, not desperate kinda way obviously. But with a question this time. So if he saw it and didn’t reply, then I’d knowfor surehe was ignoring me.

Okay. I could do this. This wasn’t a big deal. It was just a guy texting another guy. A guy who knew all my biggest secrets, had spent the better part of seven weeks making out with me, and hadSeen. Me. Naked™.

A guy who’d convinced me he really, really liked me.

A guy who’dbetterhave been abducted by goddamn aliens.

So maybe a little bit of clinginess from me was justified. As long as it didn’tcome acrossas clingy, of course.

Simple. Okay. Go.

Hey Will! So I

Nope. Backspace. Too planned looking.

Dude, you’d never guess what I

What Iwhat? There was no way to complete that sentence.

So, I’m assuming you’ve probably been abducted by aliens, but on the off chance you haven’t been

“Ollie. Do you have a second?”

I jumped so hard I almost pressed Send. And let’s be honest, if I’d done that, I might as well have thrown myself in the lake. I tried not to seem too flustered as Mom sat on the wooden stool next to me. For good measure, I backspaced the message-in-progress. Just in case. “Uh, sure. What’s up?”

Uh-oh. She had thatlookon her face.