CHAPTER 5
720 Words
CHAPTER 5
The Distance in Our Words
It started like every other day — too hot, too noisy, too busy. The campus was a blur of voices and footsteps, everyone racing to finish revisions before the next exam.
Tessa sat in her usual spot beneath the old almond tree near the faculty building, her notebook open, though her mind was far away.
Louis had promised to meet her there after class. He’d said, “Give me ten minutes, Tess. I just need to grab something from Adrian.”
That was forty-five minutes ago.
She’d checked her phone twice. Then five times. Then stopped checking altogether, because the waiting was starting to make her angry — or maybe sad. She couldn’t decide which.
When she finally saw him walking toward her, laughing with two girls from their department, her heart gave that annoying, familiar sting. He looked so carefree, too carefree — as if she hadn’t been sitting there waiting, replaying his words in her head.
He noticed her before she could look away. “Tess! You’re still here?”
“Obviously,” she said, shutting her notebook. “Where else would I be?”
Louis didn’t notice her tone — or pretended not to. “Sorry I took long. Those girls just—”
Tessa cut him off quietly. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”
He frowned a little. “I didn’t say I did.”
“Good,” she said, forcing a small smile. “Because I don’t need one.”
For a moment, silence stretched between them — awkward, thin, almost sharp.
Louis sat beside her anyway. “You’re upset.”
“I’m not.”
He raised a brow. “Tessa.”
“Louis.”
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You know, you could just say you missed me instead of acting like you didn’t.”
She turned to him, eyes tired. “You think this is about missing you?”
He shrugged. “Isn’t it?”
Something inside her cracked a little. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
Louis blinked, caught off guard. “Get what?”
“That I actually waited for you,” she said softly. “That I thought maybe — just maybe — you’d keep your word this time. But you were too busy laughing with other girls to remember.”
He stared at her, guilt flickering across his face before pride took over. “So what, I can’t talk to people now?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Because last I checked, we’re not—” he stopped himself, biting back the rest.
Tessa’s chest tightened. “Not what?”
Louis looked away, jaw tight. “Never mind.”
The silence that followed was worse than shouting.
She packed her books slowly, afraid her voice would shake if she said anything else. “You know what, Louis? Forget it.”
He reached out, touching her wrist. “Tess, don’t—”
She pulled back. “You always do this. You start something real, then pull away the moment it gets too close.”
Louis didn’t respond. His silence said everything.
She walked away, her throat burning, her eyes refusing to cooperate. Behind her, she heard him exhale — a long, helpless sound that broke her heart even more because it meant he cared, but didn’t know how to show it.
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That night, neither of them studied.
Louis stared at his phone, scrolling through their old chats — her voice notes, her laughter, her little “good luck” messages before every test.
He typed: “I’m sorry, Tess.”
Then deleted it.
Typed again: “Can we talk?”
Deleted that too.
Tessa, on the other hand, lay in bed staring at the ceiling fan. Her chest hurt in that quiet, private way heartbreak does when you don’t even know if you have the right to call it heartbreak yet.
Adrian texted her later that night:
> Adrian: Louis told me you two argued. He’s not himself either.
Tessa: He never is when things get real.
Adrian: Maybe give him time.
Tessa: I’ve given him time since the first day we met.
She turned off her phone and closed her eyes, telling herself she’d stop caring tomorrow.
She didn’t.
- Writer
