Nicolas’s POV
Avoidance is a skill you don’t realize you’re mastering until it’s too late.
By the fourth missed tutoring session, I wasn’t even pretending anymore.
I stopped walking past the academic wing at night, stopped checking the clock around ten, stopped opening my messages altogether. I even made sure that I don’t go around her apartment so I wouldn’t be sighted.
It has been a week and I had ignored Imani’s messages for way too long that I don’t even have an excuse for my actions anymore.
At first, I told myself it was temporary. That I needed space. That I was doing her a favor.
All lies.
The truth was simpler and uglier. I didn’t know what to say to her.
Every draft text sounded wrong. So I said nothing.
And silence stretched into a week.
Practice had become unbearable
