The Silence Between Us
550 Words
Zara didn’t show up to work the next day.
Or the one after.
Jason didn’t text. He didn’t call. He didn’t send wine or sticky notes or his usual half-sincere sarcasm.
He just… waited.
Because what else was there to do?
---
Zara sat in her small apartment, curled up in bed, laptop closed, blinds drawn.
She had reread every word she’d written in her novel draft—every scene Jason had inspired. Every moment that now felt too real, too painful, too much like fiction pretending to be love.
She told herself it was just s*x. Just a mistake. A boss and an employee fumbling into something they should’ve kept locked behind buttoned shirts and glass office walls.
But her heart didn’t believe it.
She hated how much she missed him.
How much she still wanted him.
And most of all… how much she feared that he didn’t know what to do with a woman who needed more than heat.
---
Jason stared at his office door.
It was the third time he’d drafted an email to her and deleted it.
The silence from her was louder than any rejection.
He’d opened himself up in ways he didn’t even recognize. And when she pulled away… it had hurt. More than he expected. More than he was ready for.
So he shut down.
He threw himself into work, let meetings run late, barked at his assistant, and corrected junior writers with a coldness he hadn’t used in months.
He was unraveling, quietly.
And no one noticed.
Except him.
---
Friday afternoon.
Zara returned.
She walked in like a stranger—face calm, posture stiff, makeup perfect. As if nothing had happened. As if her body hadn’t been under his days ago, trembling, whispering his name.
Jason looked up from his desk and froze.
Zara dropped a manila folder on the corner of his desk.
“Draft edits. You have until Monday to rip them apart.”
He stood. “Zara—”
“No.” Her voice was even. “Let’s not. I’m here to work.”
Jason walked around the desk. “You don’t have to pretend nothing happened.”
“I’m not pretending. I’m protecting.”
“From me?”
“From myself.”
That hit harder than it should have.
He exhaled slowly. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“You didn’t. Not directly. But this… us... it’s not stable. It’s smoke and chemistry and just enough silence to break someone who’s already fractured.”
“You think I don’t feel that too?”
She met his eyes, something fragile cracking behind hers. “The difference is—I don’t want to lose myself again just to keep someone who can’t decide if he’s all in.”
Jason stepped closer. “Then stay. And let me show you I’m all in.”
Zara stepped back. “Show me when it’s not convenient. When we’re not alone. When it costs you more than breathless words in the dark.”
She turned to leave.
And this time… he didn’t follow.
---
That night, Jason stared at the skyline outside his penthouse window.
Lagos looked the same.
But everything inside him had shifted.
Because for the first time… it wasn’t about winning.
It was about not losing her.
- Writer
