Chapter Sixteen - Return To College
1115 Words
The sun was gentler back here. Cooler, muted. The skies weren’t endless blue, the waves weren’t calling.
But Nick was okay with that.
He’d done what he needed to do.
The trip had brought clarity, silence, distance.
It reminded him of who he was. What he wasn’t.
And what he wasn’t… was ready.
As his car pulled into the college parking lot, Nick felt a steadiness inside him that had been missing for weeks. For the first time since stepping into that classroom and locking eyes with Olivia Blake, his mind was quiet. Not numb. Just sure.
She deserves better.
It was the sentence that anchored every other thought. He’d turned it over a hundred times under the sun. A thousand times more with every wave that crashed at his feet.
She was young, untouched, hopeful — a walking contradiction to every woman he’d known. There was something painfully delicate about the way she looked at him, like she thought she was safe.
He wasn’t.
Nick strode through the hallways of the English building, greeting a few colleagues with nods, eyes locked forward. He felt like a different man — one who had made a decision and could finally stick to it.
He wouldn’t touch her again.
Wouldn’t look at her for too long.
Wouldn’t let himself sink any deeper into something he couldn’t handle.
Because what if…
What if it wasn’t just lust?
What if that night in her dorm meant more than either of them admitted?
What if she felt something… real?
He wasn’t built for that. He didn’t know how to love — hadn’t loved anyone in years, not even himself. He wouldn’t know what to do with the emotion even if he had it.
And if he ever lost control…
If he went back to his usual patterns — charming, taking, discarding…
He wouldn’t just break Olivia.
He’d wreck her.
A girl like her, who just started to believe in something as fragile as romance, couldn’t survive someone like him. Not if he didn’t even know how he behaved in love.
Not if he turned her belief into bitterness.
He wouldn’t let that happen.
The bell rang, students shuffled in, and Nick sat behind the desk in his usual seat, flipping open the attendance sheet with calm, mechanical precision.
Except—
Her name.
No answer.
“Blake?” he called automatically.
Silence.
A boy from the second row mumbled, “She didn’t come back from home. Thought maybe she’d be here today…”
Nick’s pen froze. His chest tightened—an involuntary reaction that pissed him off.
He exhaled slowly, pushed the paper away, and carried on.
He was fine.
He had decided.
This was for the best.
Me and Olivia — it’s over.
It was nothing.
He said it again, firmer in his mind. Etched it like a scar across his thoughts.
It. Was. Nothing.
The class passed in a blur. He barely remembered what he lectured. The whiteboard filled and emptied, questions were asked and answered, students scribbled notes, and Nick Reed played his part perfectly.
But as he walked out of the classroom, he realized something strange — something that pulled unease tight across his chest like a too-small shirt.
The whole weekend away from her? He’d survived that just fine.
But one hour in that classroom without her, and it felt wrong.
Off.
Her absence was louder than her presence had ever been.
Because when she was near, he could control it — smother it under cold stares and clipped words.
But when she was gone?
There was nothing to fight.
Only silence.
Only lack.
And maybe that scared him more than anything.
Still, he pushed the thought down. Hard.
He’d made a decision. It was over.
He was done.
Even if something inside him felt a little more… empty.
Olivia hadn’t planned on staying home another night. But when her mother casually mentioned that the old bookshelf in the attic had finally started falling apart, she jumped at the excuse to stay back and help.
Maybe it was that she wasn’t ready to return. Maybe it was the quietness of home—the stillness she could hide inside—that made it easier.
She spent the afternoon in the attic, the air thick with dust and old wood. Her fingers trailed over long-forgotten books and boxes filled with photographs and fading memories. The physical work gave her something her thoughts couldn’t: silence.
But every so often, her mind betrayed her. She’d see something small—a quote scribbled in the margins of a book, or a photograph of her at fifteen with eyes full of certainty—and her chest would tighten.
She didn’t want to think about him.
About Nick.
But the thoughts came uninvited.
He hadn’t texted. Not even once. And she hadn’t either.
That made it worse.
She sat cross-legged on her childhood bed that evening, legs sore and dust still under her fingernails, phone resting cold and quiet beside her. She didn’t check his profile again.
She had the images memorized—his sunlit smile, the ocean behind him, his eyes squinting at the camera like nothing existed beyond that beach.
He looked so happy.
The kind of happiness that didn’t leave room for guilt or second thoughts.
That was what gnawed at her. The growing realization that maybe she had been the only one who felt that strange pull—that emotional weight she still hadn’t shaken off.
Maybe she had misread everything.
The tenderness. The restraint. The way he hadn’t gone all the way with her.
She’d thought it meant something. But now she wondered if she was just the only one who had assigned it meaning.
She had never been the kind of girl who misread signals. She wasn’t naive. But around him, something in her became unsure.
Dinner was quiet. Her mother asked about classes, and Olivia answered with the least amount of words she could get away with. There was nothing to say, really. Nothing she wanted to explain.
Afterward, she wandered outside into the cool night. The garden was overgrown, and the bench beneath the old tree still creaked like it used to when she was a child. She sat there, head tilted to the stars, arms wrapped around herself, the stillness too much now. She wanted distraction, but not the kind her phone offered. She didn’t want to see his smile again. Not when it wasn’t hers.
She went to bed late, body tired, mind restless. She turned her phone on silent and placed it face down on the table.
She didn’t know what she expected tomorrow. Only that she wasn’t ready to face it.
- Writer
