Page 145 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

I turned instantly.

“What?” I snapped, the word cutting through the open street louder than I meant it to.

My friends stood there, slightly breathless.

Honey, Andi, Mel, and Andre.

No dim lights. No music to soften anything. Just the daylight.

Just the truth.

Andi stepped forward. “Just please listen to us.”

“I did listen,” I shot back. “Inside. Remember? Where you judged me for getting back to the person I am in love with. Where you told me you planned my heartbreak like it was a group project.”

“That’s not fair,” Andre said, jaw tight.

“Isn’t it?” I let out a hollow laugh. “Because it felt pretty organized to me.”

Mel wiped her face, shaken. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

“Walk me through it,” I asked in a sharp tone. “How was it supposed to happen then?”

They exchanged glances.

Andi inhaled, steadying herself. “The plan was supposed to be gradual. One ex at a time. Not all at once.”

A dry breath left me. “Oh. So the emotional damage was supposed to be scheduled.”

“James—” Honey started.

“No, let her finish,” I said, eyes still locked on Andi.

Andi didn’t look away. “We wanted you to talk to them again. To hear what went wrong. To remember who you were after them. To remember who you were before Victor.”

My jaw tightened.

Andre added, “That night on your birthday—that wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

“You were spiraling,” Honey said, softer now. “You were breaking down, and it was hard for us. You kept saying his name like you couldn’t breathe without him—that you blamed yourself for the ending.”

I swallowed. The memory came back in fragments.

“So you thought,” I said slowly, “the solution was to bring all my exes back at the club?”

“We thought it would help snap you out of it,” Andi said. “Make you see the pattern.”

A laugh escaped me—but this time it cracked in the middle.

“And when I collapsed because of the overwhelming feeling of seeing all of my exes in one place, was that part of the plan too?”

“No,” Mel said immediately, stepping forward. “That’s when we realized it was the wrong decision to bring them all back in one place and time.”

Silence.

“So we went back to the original plan after that,” Honey added. “Where we have them return one by one. But still carefully.”

“Carefully, huh?” I repeated.