Our last quiet before everything changed again.
University would start next week.
Her arm had healed.
Her reason for staying was gone.
Everything we’d built these past weeks, the fragile truce, the peace, the comfort, would all fade back into what it was before.
Her life. My mess. Separate worlds.
The silence between us was too loud, and yet… I couldn’t break it. Not when she looked so still. So heavy with everything we didn’t say.
I took a slow step forward, the gravel crunching beneath my shoes, and stopped beside her. She didn’t move. Didn’t look at me. Just whispered, barely audible—
“It’s beautiful.”
I nodded, eyes on her.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “It is.”
She was standing there with the night wrapped around her, unknowingly holding every piece of me I swore I’d never give to anyone again.
She turned.
Just like that. One slow movement, and the wind caught her hair, pushing a few strands across her face.
There was something in her eyes that froze me, not anger, not pity… something softer. Something I hadn’t earned.
Her cast was gone now, but her hand still looked small, delicate, and pale against the dark sky.
She lifted it slowly, reaching out between us.
“I’m Aurora.”
Her voice was quiet, a little shaky, but real. And then, after a beat—
“Friends?”
I just stared at her.
For a second, I didn’t even move.
Didn’t breathe.
Didn’t trust what I was hearing.
Friends.
After everything.
After the bruises and the scars and the apologies that came too late. After the pool, the hospital and her tears that wouldn’t stop. After I promised to make our limited time together worth it, knowing I’d already ruined everything that could’ve been.
She was offering me this.
A hand. A start. Forgiveness, everything I didn’t deserve, she offered me.
My throat tightened. I looked at her hand, trembling just slightly in the cold, and then up at her face. She was waiting. Patient. Hopeful in the quietest way possible. I swallowed hard, the lump in my chest too heavy to speak through, and finally reached out.
