You hadn’t touched the app since you’d done it. 

You hadn’t slept much either. 

The guilt was eating you alive from the inside and you were pretty sure the ache you felt in your stomach was an ulcer from the stress of living with the horrible mistakes you had made. 

Your room was the wrong temperature. 

Your bed was uncomfortable.

The light that shone through your window from the moonlight was too bright. You couldn't hide away from it no matter how hard you tried. 

No matter how tightly you closed your eyelids you could still see everything too clearly. Even hiding your head under your pillow didn't block it all. 

The clock on the wall of your bedroom ticked rhythmically and the sound was counting down to your destruction.

You fought the useless battle against the bright moonlight for hours until you realized the reason why you could so clearly see the messy clothes on the floor in front of your closet and the overflowing wastebasket sitting beside your desk wasn’t because of a super moon occupying the sky outside, but that brightness was actually the sun shining through your window now; alerting you to the fact that you had once again spent an entire night wallowing in your own self pity or self hatred or self loathing or whatever self bull was on the docket this time. 

It was Sunday morning. 

You were sitting on a time bomb as you spread butter on your toast and kept your ears tuned in for the sounds of life inside his bedroom. 

You hadn’t really expected him to, but Baekhyun hadn’t appeared since last night when he disappeared inside his bedroom to sleep. You hadn’t heard him playing games all night or even heard his shower running or playing loud music well into the sunrise.

Was he really sleeping? 

All night? 

Like a normal person? 

Or maybe like someone who wasn’t too weighed down by the pressure of their own substantial sins might sleep. 

You knew that Baekhyun liked to sleep in late on days when he had nothing pressing to attend to. You’d both gotten in late last night and he probably wouldn't make an appearance until late morning. Maybe not even until lunchtime. 

Your toast was bland and floppy by the time you took a bite and you scowled down at the disappointing thing. Surely and somehow you could blame yourself for this breakfast failure. It wasn’t the toaster. That thing was perfect. It was you. You’d waited too long to eat it. You’d been wallowing for too long and now it was a waste. 

It was all a waste. 

You’d drive yourself crazy at this rate. You needed a distraction to get through it. 

You would do laundry and clean your bathroom and tidy your room and maybe then you could think. 

Think about what you had done to Mia, what you had done to Baekhyun; think about how low that was and how undoable it was. It wasn't like you could un-delete the messages. 

You worked on your Sunday chores and you were thinking hard. The doubt was heavy and made the load of laundry you carried out of your bedroom feel this basket was full of bricks and you were walking on a sandy beach.

How would Baekhyun react? Would he know that you had been the one to delete the messages or would he blame it on a glitch in the system? What would he think of you when Mia told him that he’d agreed to meet her himself last night. Last night when he was asleep. 

What would happen to Mia?

Would she sit alone at the cafe for an hour waiting for him or would she text him right away?

Would she quietly absorb her disappointment at being stood up or would she blame him for it. Had you just made him the bad guy? Your sweet Peanut — a villain? 

You didn't want to hurt her. You had liked her. Your jealousy had just taken over last night. You’d never been stood up before but you imagined it felt awful. Baekhyun knew what it felt like. Would it hurt him terribly to believe that he had somehow played a part in causing someone else that kind of pain by making the mistake of associating with you; the mistake of trusting you? 

You’d been watching your laundry spin around in a circle for a half an hour now and you looked up on top of the machine to see the carefully measured cup of soap sitting there. You’d been so lost in your thoughts that you forgot to put it in. The disappointment you felt in yourself was fitting it hardly even made a dent in the already deep down in the mud mood you were in. 

You’d have to stop the cycle and restart it with soap. You’d wasted all of that water. 

If Baekhyun knew about this he would be so disappointed in you. He would complain and nag about the irreparable damage you’d done to the Earth, to his Earth, his planet, his home. The only one he had to live on. 

And you deserved to be nagged. You deserved to be scolded and yelled at and you deserved to be made to feel like the absolute scum of the earth because what you had just done to him was unforgivable. 

Would he really never forgive you?

Was this what finally did it? Not your laziness or your pranks or your inability to pay rent on time, but this? You’d been given his trust and you’d trampled all over it. You’d taken what he’d given you, his friendship and his access to him, to his privacy that he valued above all else and you’d squandered it for selfish and jealous and disgusting reasons. You’d trampled all over it, all over him. Again and again you showed that you didn’t deserve someone like him. You’d sinned against him and for what? 

To stop him from dating a girl who you’d pushed him toward in the first place. 

You were an . The worst kind. A jealous, petty, selfish . 

You felt it then. You’d paused your load of laundry and you reached for the soap after the water drained from the tub. You held the button down to cancel and reset the cycle and you watched the digital display blink angrily at you, telling you that what you were trying to do was not allowed, it was against the rules. You were supposed to just let the wash cycle happen, you were just supposed to let it happen, you had been the one to push the button, you started it, why were you pausing right now why were you stopping and reversing when this was what you wanted? What kind of stops the cycle right in the middle? 

The numbers on the screen blurred. It was a blinking fuzzy red tinted mess. You could feel the sting and then the relief of the tears that crested and fell and you exhaled through a mostly stuffed up nose. 

You couldn't do this to him.

The tears on your face were warm and wet and they fell freely as the intense regret washed over you completely. 

This wasn’t you. You weren’t this person. You weren’t underhanded and sneaky. You didn't have the stomach for it. You felt like you might be sick just imagining poor Mia sitting there waiting for him, thinking the worst of him, believing that he was that kind of selfish cruel man who would treat a woman this way. That wasn’t fair to Baekhyun and you’d been a real monster to try such a low down dirty trick like this. 

You had to fix this. 

You were out of any other options other than honesty. You had to tell him exactly what you had done last night in a moment of misguided weakness, in a moment of stupidity and you had to tell him that he still had time to go meet her, to talk about whatever it was she wanted to tell him.  

You swallowed the lump in your throat and went into your bathroom to clean your face up. You would not let him be swayed by the selfish tears on your face. You had to control yourself and confess your crimes and you had to be straightforward and strong about it. 

You gripped your cell phone and you inhaled a breath through your nose and exhaled it slowly through your mouth. Your exhale hiccuped once from the earlier upset and so you did it again; breathing in deeply, filling your lungs as full as you could and exhaling in one long continuous breath; until it was stable again, until you could feel your racing heartbeat relinquishing the manic control it had over you.

His door was closed and it was quiet behind the door. 

You knocked twice, listening carefully over the thumping in your chest for the sound of his voice from inside. 

Finally it came; a soft hum from within. 

“Baekhyun—” You called through the door, “can I come in?”

His voice hummed again, low and sleepy, and you turned the knob, pushing the door open and then pushing yourself forward slowly. 

He was in his bed, half under his covers with a leg sticking out and he rolled away from the wall he was facing as you came into the room, pulling his blanket down to uncover his face, his eyes peered at you as he squinted against the light in the room. 

“Hmm?” He hummed again and his eyes closed back up. 

You held your phone out toward him and you moved closer to his bed. He squinted one eye open and lifted a hand palm up which he quickly dropped back down onto the bed, clearly still half asleep. 

“Did you break your phone?” His voice was thick with sleep and his eyes were still closed as he talked to you. 

“No, I didn’t break it. I did something wrong.” 

“Give it. I’ll fix it.” He was talking again, reaching again with more conviction now as the spell of sleep that he had been under began to break. 

He was sitting up. He was looking at you with his warm brown eyes and he was blinking as he tried to focus on what you were saying to him.

“No. I didn't break it. I did something wrong,” you repeated for emphasis and continued for clarity, “I did something bad to you. Last night when you were asleep—”

Oh this was hard. His brows lifted and you had his attention. Your words, the seriousness of then sharpened his eyes on you as you spoke.

“Last night, Mia messaged you...after the date.”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows furrowed and he was watching you very closely as the words emerged. His eyes were focused on your face and his mind was processing what you were telling him. He was still sleepy but your words were pulling him out of it. His hands gripped the cellphone you’d pushed into his hands.

“I opened the app you made for me. I read a message that Mia sent you. She wanted to meet you for coffee t-today— this afternoon, in less than an hour.”

You could feel your control slipping as you spoke the truth about the awful thing you had done and you had to look down and away from his face as you continued your confession otherwise that thickness you felt in your throat would come through in your voice. Otherwise you might not make it through this without crying. You promised yourself already that you would not do that. You had to get this out and it had to be clear and controlled. You did not deserve his sympathy or even his forgiveness. This violation had been inexcusable. 

Your own hands were empty. You’d given him your phone and he was holding it now.

“I pretended to be you, told her you would meet her and then I deleted the messages so you would not see them. So that you would stand her up. It was wrong of me. It was a mistake. I’m sorry. You can delete the app, or change the permissions or do something. I’m sorry. I know you trusted me and I messed it all up — Baekhyun, you can still make it. You can get ready and go meet her for coffee. She had something she wanted to ask you. If you get ready now, you won't miss her. She wont get stood up because — because I ed up and I acted like an .” 

Baekhyun’s sleepy face had changed as you spoke. You inhaled a deep breath and looked into his eyes and you found him watching you with a new hardness in his eyes that you hadn’t seen before and his hand gripped tight enough to snap around your cell phone. 

You could feel the blood under your skin just at the surface, heating your flesh and flushing your cheeks. You pulled your lips tight to keep the tremble out of them and he was watching your face too closely for you to be able to keep up the eye contact. 

“Bug, why would you do that?” He spoke through clenched teeth and all traces of his earlier sleep were gone. 

“I’m sorry. It just felt so bad and I knew it was wrong but I did it anyway and I have no excuse.” 

You felt the bed move when he shifted and he was pushing himself up into a full seated position with his legs hanging over the side of his bed. 

The movement made you push back and away, clearing a path for him to get up. You knew he had to get ready quickly if he wanted to make it in time. What if there was traffic?

“You still have time to make it— if you go now,” you said with a quick glance up into his eyes and you noticed he’d abandoned your phone on his bed as he moved. “She’ll be waiting for you.” 

Baekhyun wasn’t standing yet and he was still looking at you with that odd hardness in his eyes and a very slight back and forth head shake as his only significant movement. 

Your mind was preoccupied with the ticking clock on the wall and he was still just sitting there on his bed looking at you. 

Yes, you had disappointed him. Yes, you had ed up. But you were trying here. You were trying to make this right and you knew it wasn’t fair to him to throw this surprise coffee date on him at the last second but you’d ed up and you couldn't think of any other way to fix it other than to get that man to stand up and get dressed so he could go meet her right now. 

You reached for his hand and you grabbed lightly around his wrist and you pulled. 

“Baekhyun. You need to move. You’re not moving. Please.” Your pleas were growing desperate. How in the world would you fix it if he wouldn't let you fix it? 

“Is it because you were upset about Ben?” When he finally moved it was not his body or his legs it was his mouth and you let your hand sag with his wrist still suspended in your grasp. 

He moved then, Baekhyun stood up and you let your hand fall away from his arm, pulling your arms up awkwardly to cross them over your chest. You took another step away. The discomfort flowed through your entire body. You’d created this problem. This was all your fault. This atmosphere was unbearable and you could only blame yourself.

You were looking down at your feet and you wished he wasn’t watching your face as closely as he was as his eyes roamed over your pained expression. He was still shaking his head and you could tell that he was trying his hardest to make sense out of your terrible actions. 

You were his friend. Surely his friend had to have a good and valid reason for doing this to him, right? Surely it wasn’t just because maybe she was a bad person and did bad things. 

With your eyes on your feet though, it was easier to shake your head and deny that Ben had anything at all to do with why you’d attempted to sabotage his new relationship. 

“Baekhyun, you can still make it,” your voice was a whisper. You could feel your careful resolve crumbling the longer you stood here under his watchful eyes. You could feel it in your chest. Your breathing pushed hard against your lungs that fought against the oxygen and your heart pounded so noisily inside of you that you began to wonder if that had been the clock you heard all along or your own rhythmic countdown forecasting your demise. 

You had to shake your head. You had to squeeze your eyes tight and push with all of your might. You couldn't face this. It was too hard.

“If not Ben—” he was speaking again. Your eyes were closed. 

“Then why?” you heard an inhale of breath from him and it was trembling. The sound of his pain, the sound of his suffering called to you and you opened your eyes to look at him. His eyes were closed and he had a hand raised with his fingers held up. 

The agitation you heard in his breathing moved him and his body came to life as he shifted on his feet, spinning in a slow circle where he stood, he lifted both of his hands to run through his hair and his eyes were closed up tight enough for his vision to go white. 

“You can’t do this to me. You can’t do this to me again. It’s not fair.” He was speaking under his breath and you were drawn to his words as confusion rushed over your thoughtful mind. The part of your mind that made sense of things was left in a cloud. 

Again? Had you really hurt him this badly before? Your memory raced through the history you had with him and you looked over his features in worry. 

When his eyes opened back up he was looking into your face with that same dark look, the look that made you want to shrink up and hide from it. The look that somehow saw you for exactly what you were and knew just how bad of a person you could be. 

“I’m trying to fix it — I don't know what to do, Baekhyun. I don't know what I should do.”

Your feet had carried you toward his door. You could feel the overwhelming urge to escape this. To escape your own mistakes and problems and run from them. To leave this place and to hide from the way he was looking at you right now. He was still just shaking his head and staring at you. He wasn’t moving to get showered or dressed or changed even, he wasn’t grabbing his keys or his phone to leave to go meet her, why didn’t he do something? 

He must have noticed your movement. Baekhyun took several large steps toward where you’d wandered near his door and you froze when he moved. 

He was upset. You could see it in the way he carried his body through the space and you heard it in the rough way he pulled at the doorknob to his bedroom and swung it open. 

You’d half expected him to head toward the front door. Maybe he’d forgotten that he needed to chang