CHAPTER 4: THE BREAK
441 Words
Campus Garden (Morning)
The garden looks calm, but Stella’s heart isn’t. She sits on a bench, staring at her phone — no new messages. Derick hasn’t texted since the argument.
Narration:
Three days.
Three days of silence that felt like forever.
Love once loud and alive had grown quiet.
Lydia walks over.
> Lydia: “Still nothing from him?”
Stella: shakes her head “Maybe he’s moved on. Maybe I should too.”
Lydia: “If he cared, he’d reach out.”
Stella: sighs “Sometimes the ones we love the most are the ones who hurt us in silence.”
---
Scene 2 – Derick’s Apartment (Same Day)
Derick sits alone, his phone in hand, unread messages open but unsent.
> Derick (thinking): “If I text her, will she even reply? Maybe she hates me now.”
He types: “I’m sorry, Stella. I messed up.”
He deletes it.
Derick (murmuring): “Why is saying sorry so hard when you mean it?”
Narration:
He wanted to fix things. But every time he tried, guilt held him back.
---
Scene 3 – Library (Evening)
Stella studies alone. Derick walks in quietly and sits across from her. Their eyes meet for the first time in days.
> Derick: “Can we talk?”
Stella: “About what? How you ‘forgot’ to tell me about Tracy? Or how you ignored me for days?”
Derick: “I didn’t ignore you. I just… didn’t know what to say.”
Stella: “You could’ve said something, Derick. Anything.”
Derick: “I was scared — scared of losing you.”
Stella: tearfully “And now you’ve lost me anyway.”
She stands up to leave, tears falling silently.
> Derick: “Stella, please don’t do this—”
Stella: “Goodbye, Derick.”
Narration:
Sometimes, love breaks not with shouting, but with quiet goodbyes.
---
Scene 4 – Weeks Later
The semester continues. Stella focuses on her studies. Derick tries to smile around friends but looks lost.
Narration:
They passed each other in hallways like strangers.
Two people who once shared everything now shared only silence.
Derick scrolls through old pictures of them — laughing, holding hands.
> Derick (whispering): “How did we end up here?”
---
Scene 5 – Stella’s Dorm (Night)
Stella writes in her diary.
> Stella (writing):
“Maybe love isn’t meant to last forever.
Maybe it’s just meant to teach us something —
about trust, about pain, about ourselves.”
Narration:
And as she closed the book, she whispered a prayer —
that one day, her heart would hurt a little less too.
- Writer
