The Space Between Heartbeats

Chapter One The Message It was the kind of night where the silence settles too heavy on your shoulders, and everything in the room feels too still–even your heartbeat. My textbook was open, untouched. A highlighter was capped on my lap. Then my phone lit up. I stared at my phone, frozen, unable to move. The name flashing on it - how could something so simple, just a name, have this effect on me? I had spent six long months preparing myself not to flinch every time someone mentioned it, but now…now it was haunting me. I glanced at my phone again, half expecting the name to disappear like some cruel illusion. But no – Rix Cross was still there, taunting me. I pinched my arm hard. Ouch! Definitely not a dream. I couldn’t bring myself to open the message, so I dropped my phone on my bed. Rix and I had been together for a year – until one day, without warning, he ended it. I hadn’t taken it well - to say the least. It had taken almost nine months to find myself again, to find a rhythm to life without him. I didn’t eat properly for weeks after he left. It wasn’t on purpose. I just couldn’t find the energy to care. Every song felt like a landmine. Every place we’d been together started to feel haunted. I thought that part of my life was over. Buried. And now here it was again, glowing on my screen. So, why now? Why, after all this time, was he reaching out? He’d blocked me on every social media platform. He turned and walked the other way when we saw each other in public. It didn’t make sense. I took a deep breath, trying to steady the shaking in my hands. Should I read it? Or should I just delete it? I pushed the phone aside as I sat on the edge of my bed, feeling like my brain was about to short-circuit. I considered calling my best friend, Emma Roberts, or Em as she prefers to be called. She’d know what to do; she always did. But she was buried under a mountain of mid-term study notes, and I didn’t want to interrupt. This is my problem, not hers. But then I realised – I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything until I knew what this was about. I wasn’t studying anyway, so I might as well deal with this first. My hand trembled as I reached for my phone again. Maybe this was all a dream, maybe the message would disappear, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. I took another deep breath, clicked on the message, and braced myself. Three words. Eight letters. That was all it took to wreck me. What the hell do I do now? I couldn’t think straight. I needed help. I needed my life support. I opened my contacts and scrolled down to Em’s name. Without overthinking it, I hit call. The phone rang, each ring feeling like an eternity. On the sixth ring, she picked up. “Danni, what’s wrong? What happened?” Her voice was already full of concern. She had this weird sixth sense when it came to me. “I .....I don’t know,” I choked out. “I don’t know what to do.” “Take a deep breath. Start at the beginning.” Em always knew exactly what to say. I followed her instructions, shaky breath in, shaky breath out. I slowly recounted the events, the name on the screen, the overwhelming confusion. When I finished, the silence at the other end of the line was deafening. “Em?” I said, pulling the phone away from my ear to check if I’d accidentally hung up on her. The call was still active, but her side of the conversation remained eerily quiet. “Em, are you there? Earth to Em,” I said, more frantically now. Still nothing. I knew—just knew—that she was as shocked as I had been moments ago. “Did you reply, Danni?” she finally said, her voice small and shaky. “I rang you straight away, Em. I don’t know how to reply to that. Like…. What the hell? There’s just so much going on in my head right now.” “I’m coming over. Give me thirty minutes. Don’t say anything until we’ve talked this through,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Okay. See you soon,” I said, my voice a little less shaky now. I set the phone down on my bed, feeling a strange mix of relief and anxiety. At least Em was coming. She’d always known how to talk me through these things, how to pull me back from the edge of my own head. I glanced at my open book on the desk, remnants of my earlier study session still scattered on the bed. I may as well try to focus on that while I wait. Ten minutes passed, but it felt like hours. My eyes skimmed the same paragraph over and over, but none of it stuck. All I could see was his name. All I could hear were the words I didn’t know how to answer. This wasn’t a nightmare. This was real. And I wasn’t ready. Chapter Two The Day It All Changed August 1st, 2019, started like any other school day. I woke up, checked my phone, and saw my daily wake-up text from my boyfriend. Morning, babe. C u soon, ILY. I smiled, typing back my usual response: Morning, babe. ILYT, c u soon xoxo. After that, it was the usual morning routine — get dressed, eat, brush my teeth, pack my lunch, and get ready for school. Em usually walked with me, and today was no different. She knocked on my door right on time, and I shouted a quick goodbye to Mum before rushing out the door. When we arrived at school, we met up at the gate, waiting for our friends to arrive. Rixon was the first to show up, which was a little odd — he liked to sleep in, so he barely made the first bell. But today, he had a huge smile on his face, and before I knew it, he swept me up in a big hug and planted a kiss on my forehead. Poor Em, standing beside me, turned away, her eyes scanning the street for a friend who could rescue her from this overly sweet, cringey moment. I smiled back at Rixon, pecking him on the cheek. “What’s made you so happy today?” I asked a little curiously. “It’s just gonna be a great day,” he said, still grinning like he’d won the lottery. I couldn’t argue with that. My morning has been perfect so far. Slowly, the rest of our group gathered around, and we exchanged the usual drama-filled updates from our lives. The bell rang, cutting us short. Rixon pulled me into one more hug, saying, “See you later, baby.” Before letting me go, then ran off to class. I stood there for a moment, feeling the warmth of his hug linger on my skin. I didn’t want to let it go, but I had to head to class. I sat through the lesson, my attention drifting as two seniors arm-wrestled at the back of the room. My phone buzzed on the desk. A message from Rixon. I smiled without thinking. Expecting something dumb. Sweet. Him. But it wasn’t. Hey DJ, I need some space and time to think. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m sorry. The words didn’t compute at first. My brain saw letters, but my heart didn’t catch up. Then I read it again. And again. The room fell away. My chest turned to static. My throat burned. My stomach flipped like it was trying to crawl out of my body. I didn’t cry. Not right away. I just stared. And then I broke. One of the guys, arm-wrestling, stopped mid-match, his eyes on me. Then suddenly, I felt every single gaze in the room on me, their stares hot and heavy. “Who died?” someone asked, their voice full of confusion. “What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” But I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even process what was happening. All I could do was stare at the phone in my hand, reading the message again and again. It’s not you, it’s me. The rest of the day was a blur. I walked from class to class, my mind on autopilot. Every corner I turned, I expected to see Rixon’s face, but when I did, he just looked down and walked the other way. During recess, one of my friends told me he’d seen Rixon leave school early, looking agitated, like something was off. I couldn’t take it anymore. I broke down in front of Em and the rest of our group. I didn’t care that they were watching. I couldn’t hold it in. “I…I don’t know what to do,” I sobbed. “How could life change so much in a few hours? One moment, we were everything to each other, and now….now I don’t even know who I am without him.” Em pulled me into a hug, rubbing my back, but I felt like I was sinking. The world around me was spinning, and I couldn’t stop it. Rixon and I weren’t the most popular kids in school. We each had our own groups, our own friends. But for us, we were each other’s light. It hadn’t always been easy. Em and the others weren’t sure about him at first, and they didn’t think it would last. But after a year together, Rixon became like family to them, and they liked him because I did. But now….one moment, everything changed. Ever since that day, his friend Cole Hunter has kept in touch with me. At first, it was through i********:, then Snapchat. It felt like I’d somehow become a part of his world too. Maybe in some weird way, I was now part of their family as well. But that didn’t change the fact that the person I thought would be with me forever… Was suddenly a stranger. And I didn’t know how to exist without him.