I never was.
That should have ended it.
It didn’t.
Because neither of them closed the conversation.
After that, they didn’t talk often.
But they also didn’t disappear.
It became something in between.
Occasional messages.
Short replies.
Things that stopped just before they became emotional again.
Mason would see something and think of her.
Rowan would hear something and think of him.
And neither of them would say it out loud anymore.
Because saying it out loud had consequences now.
One evening, Mason sat outside the gym after practice, phone in hand.
He didn’t open anything.
Just stared at the screen.
Luca sat beside him.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Luca said.
“What thing.”
“Thinking you’re supposed to have finished something that never got finished.”
Mason exhaled.
“I don’t know what it is.”
Luca nodded slowly.
“That’s the problem,” he said. “It’s not finished enough to move on from. But it’s not active enough to fix.”
Mason didn’t respond.
Because that was exactly it.
Rowan, on the other side of the city, felt the same thing in a different way.
Not confusion.
Continuity.
