The Space Between Heartbeats

Unravelling Truths

Chapter Four

Unravelling Truths

The day everything fell apart, I didn’t just lose a boyfriend. I gained someone else — someone I never expected. Cole wasn’t supposed to stay. He wasn’t supposed to pick me.

But somehow, he did. When I got a message on i********: at lunch asking if Rix was with me, I knew something was up. My friend had said they saw Rix leave at recess, but I couldn’t confirm. When Em was filling everyone in on the details of the morning events, I sent back a message to Cole.

“Yeah… no, he’s not with me and never will be. Maybe ask him? I heard he left at recess.”

“Danni, where are you? WTF is happening? We need to talk.”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. We didn’t have any classes together for the rest of the day, so I didn’t see him. The next day was different. Physical Education with Rix and Cole, then Science with Cole. PE was t*****e. Rix had some excuse and got out of class, and Cole kept looking at me. It was like he was checking if I was okay, but from afar. Science is when Cole spoke.

“Is this seat taken?” he asked, placing his hand on the seat beside me.

“Even if I say yes, you are going to sit anyway, aren’t you,” I snapped. I knew it was harsher than intended, but he was just going to defend his friend’s actions, right?

“I will leave if you want, Danni. I know you probably want space, and I’m the last person you want to talk to.”

Cole wasn’t a hundred percent correct with his reply. I didn’t know what I wanted and spent most of my day in a trance.

“No, it’s fine, you can sit there,” I responded, nicer this time.

“Thanks, and Jett told me what happened, I…”

The look I gave him stopped him from finishing his sentence. Jett was in my friend group. Why did he only find out from my friend and not Rix? We sat together in comfortable silence. He knew I wasn’t in any frame of mind to talk.

Since that day, we’ve talked via social media and in class. It started with him checking if I was okay and telling me how much of a d**k Rix was, then we could talk about anything and sometimes hung out outside of school. We slowly became close friends. I now consider Cole my best guy mate, although only one other person knew—Em—and she was only finding out the full story now.

I picked up my phone and went to i********:. I sent a message to Cole, hoping he would help us answer some questions. While we waited for the reply, Em did some more investigating. A new post popped up on her screen. She looked at it, then looked at me. Oh god, what now? Em caught my look and quickly pretended she hadn’t seen anything and just kept scrolling. But I knew her too well. After another five long minutes, my phone beeped, giving us a heart attack once again.

“Em, it’s Cole,” I said. I gave her that ‘are you sure we should do this?’ look.

“We need answers, Danni,” was Em’s reply. I sent another text to Cole.

“Hey Cole, I’m sorry to disturb you. Em and I need your help with a situation. Are you able to come over?”

A few moments later, his reply: “Umm, I’m not sure, D. I have a friend over at the moment. They surprised me with a visit, so I feel rude asking them to leave.”

That was a weird text from Cole. He always told me who he was with—Jett, his friends, anyone. He wasn’t a secrets guy. And he never called me 'D'—that was Rix’s nickname for me. That little shift in tone? It felt like something had changed. I read Cole’s reply to Em. She didn’t think anything of it, just that he was busy.

We still didn’t have answers, and I desperately needed some. The main one was why. I looked through my i********: and went to Rix’s profile—because we decided to follow him. That’s when I saw the post Em saw before. The post was him apologising to the love of his life, the one that got away. He was saying he had to make amends for hurting people in the past. There were photos of people he had hurt. At the start were a couple of friends, and then I saw the photo of Cole and Rixon—it was time-stamped with today’s date. No way, is that why Cole couldn’t help? It’s not possible, is it?

I looked at Em. She was already looking back at me. What the hell was going on? I kept flicking through the photos until I stopped, frozen, staring at the screen. Em noticed the tears falling from my eyes instantly. It couldn’t be… but it was. Me. Us. Frozen in time, edited like a memory someone wanted to rewrite. My poor heart.