Still, my voice came out rough. “It feels like you’re leaving me.”
He reached up and cupped my face, forehead resting against mine. His breath trembled when he said, “I’m not. I’m just going for a while. I’ll be back before you can even miss me.”
Not fucking likely.
I closed my eyes. My chest throbbed with the pain of losing him. And even though every part of me wanted to hold ontighter, I let go—just enough for him to breathe, but not enough to let him disappear.
The week before finals stretched in two directions. Forward into pressure and possibility, and backward into something I couldn’t hold onto.
Tru had been different lately. Not cold, not distant—justoff.
He texted more than usual. Sent pictures of his coffee, his latest sketches, screenshots of dumb memes we used to scroll past together. He kissed me as if trying to prove a point. Told me he loved me at random times—once in the middle of the store while we were comparing laundry detergent.
“I love you more than Tide Pods,” he’d said with that crooked grin, then ducked behind a display when I stared too long.
At first, I liked the attention, the constant hum of him in my pocket and my head. But now it felt like padding. Insulation around something sharp. Maybe he was scared, too.
Maybe that’s why I kept checking my phone even when he was sitting right beside me. Why I’d started memorizing the weight of his head on my shoulder, the lazy patterns he traced on my thigh, the exact rasp of his laugh when he was sleep-deprived and running on energy drinks.
We were curled up on his bed—or mine; it didn’t matter anymore. We’d stopped calling them separate weeks ago. The desk lamp glowed low, books scattered everywhere, the sharpscent of highlighter ink hanging in the air. But studying was the last thing on my mind.
“You’re really going,” I said finally, breaking the silence.
He didn’t pretend not to know what I meant.
“Did I explain what I’ll be working on?” he asked, trying to distract me.
Only a million times. I forced a smile. “Tell me again.”
“So, they’re creating a webtoon of their most popular game,Fight Night.I’ll be helping design slides for it. Well, me and five other interns. It’s a beta program, but if it takes off, there could be a permanent position.”
His voice lifted with excitement, and my stomach twisted with acid and ache in equal parts. I dropped a kiss on his hair and whispered, “That sounds perfect for you, babe. You’re gonna kill it.”
The words were meant to sound proud, but they tasted sour.
We didn’t talk about New York. Not that night.
The silence was palpable, filled with unsaid things. Tru lay tucked under my arm, one leg tangled with mine. His breath moved slowly against my neck, but I knew he wasn’t sleeping.
“You’re really going,” I murmured.
He nodded once. He’d been waiting for me to say it out loud.
“I’m proud of you,” I added, the words scraping out of me like gravel.
He tilted his face up, all soft eyes and shadows. “Then be proudwithme. Not against me.”
That stung. Because I knew I’d been holding him too tight, pretending I could protect us from change if I just didn’t let go.
“I’ll miss this,” I said. “You. Us.”
“You won’t lose me,” he whispered. His hand slipped under my shirt, fingertips mapping me like he was afraid he’d forget the terrain.
I turned toward him, kissing him slowly, desperately, memorizing. The kind of kiss you give when time is slipping through your fingers. I pressed him closer, trying to brand the moment into both of us.
“Remember this,” I whispered against his mouth. “Remember what we are.”
“I will,” he breathed. “Always.”
