Loving You in slience
970 Words
Chapter Five: The Space Between Us
The days that followed were painted in uncertainty.
Aiden didn’t sit at their table the next afternoon. Or the one after that. Elena waited, her sketchbook open, her pencil idle between her fingers. She told herself she wasn’t waiting, but every time the library door creaked open, her heart betrayed her.
It had been three days since he told her. Three days since the rain fell on both of them like judgment. She hadn’t told her mother, hadn’t even drawn much. Her world—once small, but full of warmth—suddenly felt colder than ever.
She didn’t know if he had made a decision. If the transfer was happening. If she would ever get to say goodbye properly.
But on the fourth day, he returned.
He walked in slowly, his steps hesitant, and his eyes found hers instantly. There were shadows beneath them, like he hadn’t slept. Like he’d been carrying the same weight she had.
She didn’t smile. Neither did he.
He sat across from her and pulled out a small stack of notes he hadn’t given her. One by one, he laid them on the table, each folded with the same neat care. She stared at them without reaching.
Finally, he wrote:
"I needed time. I didn’t want to come back and lie."
She wrote back:
"Are you going?"
He hesitated.
"They’re pushing for it. My dad already filed transfer papers. It’s a better school, better connections, better future."
Her fingers tightened around her pencil.
"But it’s not better for me."
He looked up. There was something raw in his expression now.
"I don’t want to leave you, Elena. That’s the truth. I don’t want to lose what we have."
She blinked, rapidly. Her hand moved.
"Then don’t."
He leaned forward, frustration slipping into his features.
"It’s not that easy. My dad’s invested in this. He thinks I’m wasting potential here. That I’m distracted."
Her brows furrowed.
"Am I a distraction to you?"
He looked stunned. Then slowly, he shook his head.
"You’re the only real thing I’ve had in a long time."
The library was too quiet for their storm, and so, they took their conversation elsewhere. The walk through Cresthill’s courtyard was quiet but charged. They didn’t hold hands this time.
---
They ended up on the rooftop of the old art building. It was a place only Elena knew—a place she went to draw when the walls felt too close.
The sky stretched endlessly above them, heavy with clouds, just like their hearts.
"My mom doesn’t know about you," Aiden said, sitting against the brick wall. "Neither does my dad. I don’t tell them much. They don’t listen anyway."
Elena sat beside him, pulling her knees to her chest. She handed him her sketchbook.
On the page was a drawing of him, looking out a window, headphones around his neck, a storm outside. He was smiling—but barely.
"Is that how you see me?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Then I must really be a mess."
She shook her head and pointed to the sky in the picture.
"You always see light," she wrote beneath the drawing.
He was quiet for a long time. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper:
"I wish I could see it now."
---
The following days were a delicate balance of routine and rupture. Aiden showed up more, but not every day. Elena pretended not to notice how his smiles took longer to reach his eyes. She filled her sketchbook with fragments of them—his hands, his laugh, the slope of his shoulder when he leaned in close.
Their time was running out.
Everyone around them was preparing for exams, deadlines, final presentations. But Elena and Aiden were counting moments.
One afternoon, he brought her a gift.
A charm bracelet. Simple. Silver. On it, a tiny book charm, and beside it, a miniature pencil.
He placed it in her palm.
"So you remember," he said. "So you know I never forgot."
She touched it gently, then pulled him into a hug. A silent one. One that said all the things she couldn’t.
---
The last week came like a tidal wave.
She tried to be brave. Tried not to show the ache in her eyes when he talked about packing. About how his dad had already booked the flight. How his new dorm was closer to the coast. How he’d send her pictures of the ocean.
She didn’t want pictures.
She wanted him here.
On their last day, they met at the rooftop again. The sky was clear this time, stars blinking softly overhead.
"Say something," he said.
She opened her journal, hands shaking.
"If I could scream, I would scream your name until it echoes through every hallway. If I could sing, I’d write songs that only your heart could understand. But all I can do is draw you. Love you silently. And hope you’ll still hear me even when you’re gone."
He closed the notebook, gently.
"I will. I promise I will."
He cupped her cheek, thumb brushing away a tear.
And then he kissed her.
It was slow. Careful. Soft. A moment suspended in the night air.
When it ended, they stood forehead to forehead.
"You were never a distraction, Elena," he whispered. "You were the reason I stayed this long."
She signed with trembling fingers: I love you.
His breath caught. Then he signed it back.
I love you too.
---
He left the next morning.
She didn’t go to the airport. She didn’t need to. The goodbye had already happened.
But she kept the bracelet. And the notes. And every sketch she had drawn of him.
And she kept writing.
Because even in silence, love doesn’t disappear.
It waits. It listens.
It endures.
- Writer
