Étoile

Chapter 6

Chapter 6: The Distance Between Us

It had been thirteen days, seven hours, and twenty-two minutes since Stella Baeumont last spoke to Julien Astor.

Not that she was counting.

She sat alone in the quiet corner of the Cour du Savoir, her highlighters uncapped and untouched beside a thick pile of case notes. The early spring air was crisp, scented faintly with blooming cherry trees and freshly brewed coffee from the nearby Café Lumière. It should have been comforting. Instead, it all felt muted.

The silence between them was louder than any fight they’d ever had.

After their blow-up during the regional trial, they had each retreated into their own fortresses. Julien buried himself in his textbooks and extra shifts at the student legal aid clinic. Stella ,ever the strategist, doubled down on her readings, lecture notes, and emotional isolation. The only time they were in the same room now was when required—group meetings, trial rehearsals—and even then, their interactions were surgical, professional, and painfully cold.

She hated it.

She hated how his absence followed her around campus like a ghost, how she kept expecting him to sit beside her during lectures with that smug half-smile, or nudge her knee under the library table when she got too intense. She hated how well he had respected her silence. How he hadn’t tried to text. Or call. Or chase her.

But worst of all, she hated how much she wanted him to.

She was halfway through annotating a witness deposition when the familiar scrape of a chair startled her. She looked up instinctively—heart leaping before she could stop it—but it was just Camille, her classmate, dropping into the seat across from her.

"You're not still freezing out Julien, are you?" Camille asked, pulling out her laptop.

Stella stiffened. "I’m not ‘freezing him out.’ We’re focusing on nationals."

"You two looked like strangers in rehearsal yesterday. Not co-counsels. And definitely not... whatever it is you were before."

Stella didn’t answer. Because she didn’t know what they were before. And she certainly didn’t know what they were now.

Camille sighed and turned back to her screen. "Well, if you want my advice—"

"I don’t."

"—talk to him. Before the silence becomes permanent."

Julien sat slouched on a bench outside Résidence Diderot, nursing a bottle of Orangina and staring at the fading sky. The rooftops of Paris stretched out like a painting, but he couldn’t bring himself to appreciate it. Not tonight. Not when every thought looped back to Stella

He had wanted to text her so many times. To tell her he missed her. To explain. To fight, even, just to feel something other than this weight pressing down on his chest. But he had seen the way she shut down after their fight. How she pulled the drawbridge up and left him outside.

So he waited. And hurt. And studied. And wondered if letting her go had been the right thing after all.

The turning point came in the form of an email.

From the Dean: "Finalists for the International Legal Fellowship have been selected. Official announcement to follow tomorrow."

Stella read it twice. Her stomach clenched. There were only two finalists from Saint-Aubin. She already knew who the other one was.

The irony wasn’t lost on her.

She closed her laptop and stood up so fast she nearly knocked over her chair. She didn’t stop to gather her things. She didn’t even stop to think.

She just ran.

Julien was in the rooftop garden, headphones in, eyes closed. He didn’t hear her until her boots crunched against the gravel.

He looked up. His expression flickered with something unreadable. "Stella."

"We need to talk," she said, breathless. "Now."

He stood, pulling out his earbuds. "Okay."

For a moment, they just stood there, surrounded by fig trees and silence.

Then she exhaled. "I’m sorry. For the things I said. For pushing you away. I was scared. Not of you—of what this could be. Of what I could lose."

Julien’s jaw tightened. "You think I wasn’t scared too? I’m terrified of falling short of you, Stella. You set the bar so high I can’t even see it sometimes."

"I don’t want you to meet my standard. I want you to meet me. Here. Now. Scared, flawed, and—yes—probably still angry."

He laughed softly. "That I can do."

She took a step closer. "I don’t know what happens next. But I know I don’t want to do it without you."

He took her hand. Warm. Familiar. Steady.

"Then let’s figure it out. Together."

They didn’t kiss. Not yet. But they stood there until the sun dipped behind the rooftops and the lights of Paris began to glow.

The silence between them? Finally broken.

And somehow, that was louder than anything they’d ever said.