⸻
Chapter Twenty
Morning came without permission.
Sunlight slipped through the curtains like it had business in her room, landing softly on her face. She didn't move. She hadn't slept much anyway—just drifted in and out of half-dreams where his voice kept finding her, calm and apologetic and dangerous in the way it still mattered.
Her phone was in her hand when she woke up.
No new messages.
She stared at the ceiling, letting the quiet sit with her. Last night hadn't fixed anything. It hadn't broken anything either. It had just… shifted the ground beneath her feet. And now she had to decide how to stand on it.
She finally got up, moved through her routine on autopilot. Shower. Clothes. Mirror. She paused there, studying her reflection like she might find answers in her own eyes.
"You deserve peace," she whispered to herself.
It sounded true. It just didn't sound easy.
Later that afternoon, she met up with her friend at the café near campus—the one with the chipped mugs and the loud music that made eavesdropping impossible. The smell of coffee wrapped around her as she sat down, but even that comfort felt thin.
"You look like someone who didn't sleep," her friend said, sliding into the seat opposite her.
"He came over last night," she admitted.
Her friend's eyebrows shot up. "Of course he did."
"He apologized," she added quickly, like that explained everything.
"And?" her friend pressed.
She stared into her cup. "And I don't know if it changes anything."
Her friend leaned forward. "Listen to me. An apology is cute. Consistency is the real flex."
That one landed.
She nodded slowly. "I told him I needed time."
"Good," her friend said. "Time reveals intentions."
They talked about classes, random gossip, anything but him, and for a while it worked. She laughed. She breathed. She almost forgot.
Almost.
That evening, her phone buzzed while she was organizing her notes.
Him: I said I'd give you time. Just wanted you to know I meant it.
She stared at the message for a long moment.
No pressure. No guilt. No dramatic paragraph.
Just presence.
She typed, erased, typed again.
Thank you, she finally sent. That matters.
The reply didn't come immediately—and strangely, she was okay with that.
Days passed. Not dramatic days. Ordinary ones. He didn't disappear, but he didn't push either. Sometimes it was a good-morning text. Sometimes it was silence. But the silence felt different now—respectful, not avoidant.
And that scared her more than the chaos ever had.
One evening, as she walked back to her room, she realized something uncomfortable.
She missed him.
Not the version of him that hurt her. Not the uncertainty. Just him—his laugh, the way he listened when he really tried, the feeling of being seen.
But missing someone wasn't the same as needing them.
That night, she opened her notebook and wrote one sentence at the top of a blank page:
What do I want—without him deciding first?
She stared at it for a long time.
The answer didn't come right away.
But for the first time, she trusted that it would.