Noah stopped trying to talk to me after Monday, and I should have been relieved. He no longer waited near the gates after school. I didn't catch him watching me across the cafeteria, and when we passed each other near the science building on Tuesday, he looked away first. I took it as a sign that our last conversation had finally reached him. I'd told him clearly that I didn't want to start again, and maybe he'd accepted that there wasn't another version of my answer waiting if he asked often enough. By Wednesday, I had almost stopped noticing his absence. There were too many other things taking up space in my head anyway. Luca's knee was improving, my next academic event was getting closer, and Adrian's question about why I still called my relationship fake had become irritatingly difficu
