Not cruel. Not kind.
Not the Joshua I met in August last year, but not a new one either.
Just… still.
Still in a way that made me feel weirdly empty.
I should be relieved that the comments stopped, that he didn’t humiliate me anymore. But somehow the quiet felt worse. It was too clean. Too measured.
Like he’d decided to erase me without saying it.
The way he passed me during practice now, no words, no look, just a nod toward the bench as if I were part of the air. I couldn’t even tell if he was being professional or if he was pretending I didn’t exist.
And maybe that was better. Maybe this was how it should be.
I turned the page.
My handwriting wavered, a tiny smear where the ink had dragged.
Dec 11 — no interaction. Normal.
Normal. Whatever that means anymore.
The wind picked up, catching my hair and flipping a page backwards. I held it down and stared at the curve of his name written over and over, unintentionally, at the top of every page.
It looked strange, written so many times. Too familiar. Too close.
I sighed, closing the notebook and hugging it to my chest.
Maybe this was better. Maybe the calm was safer. Maybe this was the part where we both pretended November neverhappened. The mud never happened. The ball near my head never happened. Nothing… happened.
I kept walking, past the frozen fountain, past the noise of campus, pretending that everything was okay. That I was happy everything turned out this way.
And then I saw him.
Miles.
Leaning against his car like it was made for him, smiling down at a girl I didn’t recognise. Her hand brushed his arm; he didn’t move it away.
He said something that made her laugh, head tilting back, his grin widening in return.
I stopped walking.
For a second, I couldn’t feel the cold anymore.
Just that tight, hollow ache in my chest, the kind that comes when reality nudges you too hard.
Oh. Of course.
I shouldn’t feel anything. I wasn’t supposed to. We were friends. He was kind, easy, warm, and he didn’t owe me anything. Still, that tiny, pathetic hope that had lived quietly in my chest for weeks flickered out, small and silent.
I was still staring when someone stepped into my view.
A shadow.
Tall, broad, blocking the light from the streetlamp.
“Don’t look at him,” a low voice said.
