“Thentell me.” I reach for her, just enough to close the space, my words coming faster, more frantic. “Whatever it is, I can take it. I can solve it. Whatever problem you think you have—I’ll make it go away. Just leave it with me.”
“Nathaniel, enough!” Her voice rips out of her like it’s been lodged there for days. The sharpness of it stuns me.
Her tears come hard and fast now.
I reach for her, and she jerks back like my touch burns. It lands like a blow.
She starts shoving things into her bag frantically, barely pausing long enough to make sure she’s grabbing everything. Her goal is clear:flee.
Panic slams into me. I scramble to pack too, my hands clumsy, fumbling with my charger, my laptop still open on the table. By the time I shove my bag closed, she’s disappearing through the doors, not even sparing me a backward glance.
I’m on my feet immediately.
Outside, she’s walking fast, but I catch her easily, reaching for her elbow.
“Olivia, wait. Talk to me—please.” I try to pull her into me, to get her to stop running, but she recoils and it slices through me once again.
Her voice splinters when she whips around to face me, finally.
“I’ve let you set the pace of this relationship from the start, Nathaniel. Every step. Every turn. I’ve followed your lead. But I need to move at my own speed for once.”
I don’t know what to say. My chest is hollowing out, a slow, sinking ache. I nod—automatically, stupidly—because I’ll agree to anything if it keeps her from stepping further away.
“I will,” I say desperately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push. I just wanted to help. I thought…if I could make life easier for you?—”
“Then stop putting me in situations I’m not ready for!”
My mind careens, grasping at the edges of what she could possibly mean. This isn’t just about spring break. She has to be talking about more—the move-in, my proposal, New York.Every next step I tried to plan for her because I thought I was helping.
For a second, hope flickers that this could finally be the moment she tells me what she wants, what she’s been holding back.
No. Not like this.
I just need to soothe her and remind her of what we are.She loves me.If I can get her to breathe, to see straight, to let me hold her long enough to remember…then maybe she won’t say it. Maybe she won’t?—
“Please don’t follow me.” She says, pulling her bag higher on her shoulder. “I just…I need to be able to hear my own thoughts for a minute. I’m getting overwhelmed, Nate. And I can’t sort through any of it with you breathing down my neck.” Her voice trembles. “If I stay, I’ll break something between us. I can feel it.”
No. Not this again.
I can’t bear the distance that she’s trying to impose once more, the slow retreat that I’d fought so hard to keep from recurring.
Yet, I say nothing.
Not because I don’t feel every inch of space she’s about to carve between us like a blade against my ribs. But because Iknow if I don’t let her go now—if I try to stop her—she might not come back at all.
The thought alone creates a tightness in my chest, and I can’t find my footing in the space she’s about to leave behind.
My hands drop helplessly to my sides, fingers curling as if they might hold on to something that’s already slipping away.
She doesn’t so much as hesitate. She pulls her coat tighter around her frame and walks off in quick, purposeful strides. I watch as she leaves, how her shoulders tremble, the way she swipes at her cheeks with both hands as if she can scrub the whole moment from her memory.
And I let her go.
Every instinct I have screams to follow, to close the gap, to keep her near. But I stay rooted where I am—held there by nothing but the desperate, aching want for her to stay.
I tellmyself not to text her.
Not to check her location.
