Chapter 4: The Distance Between Us. By Mayank Singla
1156 Words
Time is a weird thing.
Sometimes it moves so fast, you don’t even realize a moment became a memory.
Other times, it drags — painfully slow, like it’s mocking you.
That week without Lily talking to me?
It dragged.
Everything around me looked the same — the same old classrooms, the same grey hostel walls, the same canteen food I always complained about.
But it felt different.
Like something had been torn out of the picture and the frame still hadn’t adjusted.
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I saw her almost every day. That was the worst part.
She was always there — across the hallway, in the third row of class, scrolling on her phone in the library lawn.
But she never looked at me.
Not once.
It’s strange how someone can take up so much space in your world and then act like you’re invisible.
She used to tease me for the way I organized my notes. She used to steal my water bottle and scribble cartoons in my margins. She used to say “college boy” like it was some inside joke.
Now? Nothing.
Not even a head nod. Not even a smirk.
Just silence.
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Arjun noticed.
“You okay?” he asked one night while we played FIFA in our room.
“Yeah,” I said, my eyes stuck to the screen.
He paused the game. “You haven’t been okay since she came back.”
I didn’t answer.
“I get it, man,” he said. “But sometimes people don’t want to be saved.”
“She didn’t need saving,” I said, finally.
“Then maybe you did.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Because maybe he was right.
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Three days later, I saw her alone on the terrace of the media building — where she always went when she needed space.
I stood below, staring up at the edge, not sure if I should go up.
I told myself no.
But my feet didn’t listen.
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She was sitting on the ledge, legs crossed, hoodie pulled over her head. Her earphones were in, music faintly playing — something soft and acoustic, totally unlike the chaotic rock she usually blasted.
I approached slowly.
She didn’t turn around.
“Is this seat taken?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
She didn’t answer.
But she didn’t tell me to leave either.
So I sat.
For a full minute, we said nothing.
Just the hum of the city below us and the gentle strumming from her playlist.
Then she finally spoke.
“I didn’t think you’d come up here.”
“I didn’t think you’d let me.”
She smiled — a tiny, tired curve of her lips.
“You always say the right thing, huh?”
I shrugged. “I just say what I feel.”
She looked out at the skyline. “That’s the problem. You feel too much.”
I took a breath. “And you pretend not to.”
That hit something.
She flinched, just a little.
But didn’t argue.
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“You know,” she said after a long pause, “I used to think anyone who got too close was just waiting to leave. Or change me. Or both.”
“And me?”
“You… confused me,” she said softly. “You didn’t ask for anything. You just stayed.”
I looked at her, my heart louder than it should’ve been.
“I stayed because I wanted to. Not because I expected you to change.”
She glanced at me, her eyes shinier than usual.
“And then I got scared,” she admitted. “Scared you’d expect more. That I’d ruin it.”
“You didn’t ruin anything.”
She laughed — a bitter one. “Not yet.”
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We sat in silence again, but this time it wasn’t heavy.
It was honest.
She pulled one earbud out and offered it to me. I took it.
The song was something soft and slow, the kind you only listen to when it’s just you and the night.
“You like this stuff?” I asked, surprised.
She smiled. “Only when I’m being emo.”
I chuckled. “You? Emo?”
“You’d be surprised,” she said, eyes on the stars.
I wanted to say so much more. Ask her what she was thinking. What we were. If we even were anything anymore.
But I didn’t.
Because for once, being beside her — no labels, no pressure — was enough.
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The next day, things were still… delicate.
She smiled when she passed me in the hallway.
Not a smirk. Not a sarcastic grin. A real smile.
That was enough to carry me through three dull lectures and a two-hour economics lab.
Later that afternoon, she messaged me for the first time in days.
Lily: Wanna ditch class again and do something mildly illegal?
Me: Define mildly.
Lily: Like… crash a senior-only poetry open mic?
Me: That’s not even close to illegal.
Lily: Then we’ll steal cookies from the snack table to make it official.
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That night, I stood next to Lily in the back of the student lounge, watching people read their heartbreak out loud into a microphone.
Some were cringy. Some were brilliant.
And some… felt like us.
Lily leaned in at one point and whispered, “That one guy sounds like he just discovered love last Tuesday.”
I laughed, but quietly.
Later, someone read a poem that hit me in the chest.
It wasn’t flashy. Just honest.
“I want to be loved without needing to be fixed.”
I looked at Lily.
She was already looking at me.
For a moment, I wondered if she wrote that.
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After the mic night, we sat on the hostel steps, legs stretched out, cookie crumbs between us.
She looked up at the stars and said, “You ever wonder what we are?”
I blinked. “We?”
“Yeah,” she said, softer than I expected. “This thing between us.”
I didn’t answer right away.
Because the truth was — I didn’t know.
Somewhere between the teasing and the silence, between the notebooks and the rooftop confessions, we’d blurred lines.
“We’re… figuring it out,” I said finally.
She nodded. “I like that.”
And just like that, we didn’t need to define it.
Not yet.
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A few days later, I caught Lily doodling in her notebook again. She was back to her usual seat beside me, legs crossed on the chair, headphones hanging around her neck, a pen twirling in her fingers.
“What are you drawing now?” I asked.
She turned the page.
It was me again.
Sitting on the rooftop this time. A headphone in one ear. A smile on my face.
Below it, in tiny letters:
“You stayed.”
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To Be Continued…
- Writer
