The Right Swipe (Modern Love, #1)

by Alisha Rai

When you ghost someone, you’re saying, I don’t care enough about you as a human being to even tell you I don’t want to see you again. How humiliating is that?”

Rhiannon tugged at Samson’s arm. She’d always assumed if she was ever in a bar brawl, she’d be the one starting it, not playing the role of an anxious girlfriend.

She rested her face against his shoulder and breathed deeply while he rubbed her back. “I’m sorry. This was an overreaction.” “No. If it’s important to you, it’s not an overreaction. It’s okay, Rhi.”

“Well, if it’s helped, that’s great, but I wouldn’t advise you to use every snippet I said to you as a child in your adult life. Half the time, I was throwing stuff at the wall in the hopes it would keep you balanced and well-grounded in that school full of toxic assholes.” “What?” “I hate to admit this, but I don’t know everything.” Sonya drained her glass of whiskey in one shot and made a face. “Do you have any idea what it’s like, to be the mother of a prodigy? To know your child is brilliant and destined for greatness but will still have to work four times as hard as people with a fraction of her intelligence? I was furious when your classmates were rough on you, but I figured my job was to keep you calm and focused and not let you lose this opportunity. I couldn’t let you be angry, or at the very least, I couldn’t let you show that anger. Because then you would be that angry Black girl, and everyone would dismiss your intelligence or worse, suppress everything that makes you you. So I—” She stopped, and inhaled sharply. “I guess I suppressed you. My God. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

Unless you’re a man who ghosted me at some point, in which case I am explicitly not thanking you and send you no love, I assume you’re dead, it’s the only explanation for your disappearance. Peace.