Chapter Fourteen - Weekend
700 Words
The weekend arrived with an unexpected kind of silence.
Nick had announced at the end of Friday’s lecture — casually, as if it barely mattered — that he wouldn’t be around for the next day or two. “Taking a quick trip,” he’d said, tugging the strap of his bag higher over his shoulder, barely looking at anyone in particular.
Olivia heard it like a gunshot.
A trip. Without her. Without a word of consideration, without the slightest hint that she’d even crossed his mind while making his plans.
She returned home that evening, stepping back into the sterile chill of her family’s house. Her parents, as always, barely noticed her arrival. A muttered hello from her mother, a nod from her father, and then they both disappeared into separate rooms, leaving her standing alone in the dim hallway.
It was almost comforting, in a way — the familiar emptiness. Predictable. Expected.
Still, she found herself restless. Unsettled.
Lying in her childhood bedroom that night, the walls still painted in soft pastels from a life she barely recognized anymore, Olivia curled under the covers with her phone in hand, scrolling through meaningless posts, group chats, and pointless updates.
Until she saw him.
Nick’s profile wasn’t public. Of course it wasn’t.
But someone had tagged him in a story — a distant shot of him leaning against a railing, the ocean behind him stretching out into forever. He was wearing sunglasses, hair ruffled by the wind, a coffee cup balanced casually between his fingers.
He looked good.
Too good.
Relaxed. Smiling. Alive in a way she’d never seen in the classroom, never glimpsed in the charged silences between them.
And he wasn’t alone.
A few other faces appeared in the background of the shots — some familiar from campus, others strangers. But none of it mattered. It was the expression on his face that gutted her.
Free.
Happy.
As if nothing tied him down. As if nothing — and no one — mattered enough to keep him from chasing whatever it was he wanted.
She stared at the photo until her vision blurred, her chest tightening with something she couldn’t name.
Disappointment.
Jealousy.
Self-loathing.
It twisted inside her, sharp and ugly.
She set her phone down roughly on the nightstand and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to block it all out.
Why did it hurt so much?
Why did she think… why did she hope… he might feel something too?
It was stupid.
Nick Reed didn’t belong to her. He had made that clear from the beginning — from the moment he laid out his rules, from the moment he kissed her with brutal, beautiful detachment, from the moment he promised her nothing.
And she had agreed.
It wasn’t his fault she was the fool who let her heart slip past her defenses.
Maybe there was something wrong with her.
Maybe she wanted too much.
Maybe she was broken in a way that couldn’t be repaired.
The sheets felt suffocating, too heavy over her skin. She kicked them off and curled into herself, arms wrapped tight around her knees, trying to steady her breathing.
He’s allowed to have a life.
He’s allowed to be happy.
He doesn’t owe you anything.
But it didn’t stop the ache.
It didn’t stop the way her mind kept drifting back to his hands on her body, the low rasp of his voice against her ear, the cruel gentleness of the way he had touched her and then stopped — because she wasn’t ready.
Had he stopped because he cared? Or because he didn’t want to deal with the burden of breaking her?
Her stomach twisted painfully.
The logical answer was obvious.
It wasn’t care. It was convenience.
She was just another fragile thing he didn’t want to crack open too soon.
And now he was smiling somewhere far away, untouched by the memory of her at all.
She buried her face in her pillow, swallowing a sob she didn’t even realize she had been holding back.
It would pass.
It had to.
Because Nick Reed wasn’t coming to save her.
And she had no idea how to save herself.
- Writer
