Chapter 7 – Fractures
464 Words
The next week, Elias didn’t come to class.
Aria tried to ignore the hollow feeling in her chest as she sat in her usual seat, eyes straying toward the back row where his desk remained empty. The professor droned on, her friends whispered beside her, but her mind was elsewhere—wondering if he was sick, or if something heavier had dragged him away.
When he didn’t appear in the library that evening, her worry grew.
It was foolish, she told herself. They barely knew each other. He had never given her anything but curt words and distant stares. And yet… she couldn’t stop thinking about the shadows in his eyes the last time they spoke.
By the third day, Aria couldn’t take it anymore. She gathered the courage to ask around, though the answers were scarce.
“Elias Vale?” one of her classmates said, raising a brow. “He comes and goes. Sometimes he disappears for weeks. Don’t waste your time worrying.”
But Aria’s heart refused to listen.
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On Friday evening, as the sun dipped low and painted the campus in gold, Aria left the art building with her sketchbook under her arm. She hadn’t expected to see him, but there he was—leaning against the side of the library, half-shadowed by the fading light.
Elias looked pale, almost exhausted, as though something had drained him hollow. His satchel hung loosely at his side, and his gaze was fixed on the horizon, distant and unreachable.
Aria’s breath caught. She almost turned away, almost told herself to leave him be. But instead, her feet carried her forward.
“You disappeared,” she said softly.
Elias’s head turned. His gray eyes landed on her, unreadable as ever. “Did I?”
“Yes.” She clutched her sketchbook tighter, her heart racing. “And you didn’t say anything.”
For a long moment, he simply stared at her. She thought he might walk away, or shut her out with another single, sharp word. Instead, his lips curved into the faintest, bitterest smile.
“People notice when I’m gone now?”
The words hit her like a sting. Not because they were cruel, but because they sounded… broken.
Aria stepped closer, the grass crunching beneath her shoes. “I noticed.”
Something flickered in his gaze, but he turned his head quickly, as if afraid to let her see. “Don’t,” he said again, the same way he had before—quiet, controlled, but with an edge of pleading this time.
Aria tilted her chin, stubborn as ever. “Too late.”
The silence stretched between them, filled only by the song of crickets and the soft rustle of evening wind.
And for the first time, Elias Vale didn’t walk away.
- Writer
