Chapter 99
1091 Words
✨The Space Between Us✨
Ari Darven
The message stayed on the screen.
Bright.
Unavoidable.
Elena: I asked for space, not distance. There’s a difference. Please come back.
Ari didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
Just stared at it like if he looked long enough, it would mean something different.
Something easier.
Another vibration.
Elena: Ari… please. I’m still here.
Elena didn’t say please.
Not easily.
Not ever.
His jaw tightened.
Still—
He didn’t pick up the phone.
Matteo watched him carefully from across the room, leaning back against the counter, arms crossed.
“Well?” he asked.
Ari exhaled slowly through his nose, dragging a hand down his face.
“She said she needed space.”
“And now she’s asking you to come home,” Matteo pointed out.
Ari let out a humorless breath.
“Yeah.”
Another message.
Elena: Please don’t leave me like this. Come back to me.
That one—
That one hit.
Hard.
Ari’s fingers flexed slightly at his side.
His chest tightening in a way he didn’t like.
Didn’t understand.
Didn’t want.
“Answer her,” Matteo said, quieter this time.
Ari shook his head once.
“She made it clear.”
Matteo frowned.
“She said she was overwhelmed, not that she didn’t want you.”
“She said she can’t keep doing this,” Ari shot back.
“And you think that means she doesn’t want you?” Matteo challenged.
Ari didn’t respond.
Because that wasn’t the part that stayed with him.
It was the hesitation.
The doubt.
The fact that after everything—
She still wasn’t sure.
“I’ve been patient,” Ari said finally, his voice low.
Matteo didn’t interrupt.
Didn’t move.
Just listened.
“I gave her time. Space. Let her move at her pace. Didn’t push her into anything she wasn’t ready for.”
His gaze dropped briefly.
Then lifted again.
“And she still doesn’t know if she wants this.”
Matteo exhaled slowly.
“That’s not what she said.”
“It’s what she meant.”
Silence.
Ari looked back at the phone.
At her name.
At the messages sitting there like something fragile—
And unfinished.
“I stood up to my father for her,” he added, quieter now. “You know that.”
Matteo nodded.
“I do.”
“I don’t do that,” Ari continued. “Not for anyone.”
And that was the truth.
Heavy.
Real.
“And still…” Ari’s voice trailed off.
He didn’t finish it.
Didn’t need to.
Still—
She hesitated.
Matteo pushed off the counter slowly.
“You’re taking this personal.”
Ari gave him a look.
“It is personal.”
“No,” Matteo said calmly. “It’s emotional. There’s a difference.”
Ari scoffed lightly.
“That supposed to make it better?”
“It’s supposed to make you think,” Matteo replied.
The phone buzzed again.
This time—
It wasn’t Ari's.
Matteo’s phone lit up instead.
He glanced down.
Then back at Ari.
Then back at the phone again.
“…You’re not going to like this,” Matteo muttered.
Ari’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“What?”
Matteo answered.
“Yeah.”
A pause.
His gaze shifted to Ari again.
“Slow down.”
Another pause.
Longer this time.
Then—
Matteo sighed.
“She’s asking for you,” he said, pulling the phone away slightly before Ari could hear the other side.
Ari’s entire body stilled.
“Elena,” Matteo confirmed.
Ari didn’t move.
Didn’t reach for the phone.
Didn’t speak.
Matteo brought it back to his ear.
“He’s here,” he said.
A pause.
Then—
“No, he’s not picking up.”
Ari clenched his jaw.
Matteo listened for a moment longer.
His expression shifting slightly.
Softening.
“…I hear you,” he said quietly. “Just… give it a second, yeah?”
He hung up.
Silence filled the room again.
“She’s crying,” Matteo said simply.
That—
That did something.
Ari looked away immediately, his jaw tightening harder.
Running a hand through his hair again like he needed to get rid of the tension crawling under his skin.
“She didn’t cry when she said she couldn’t do this,” he muttered.
Matteo frowned.
“That’s not fair.”
Ari laughed once.
Low.
Dry.
“No, what’s not fair is me standing there listening to her question us like I’m something she can walk away from if it gets inconvenient.”
“That’s not what she’s doing,” Matteo said.
“Then what is she doing?” Ari snapped, turning back to him. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like she’s been sitting on this—thinking about it—for how long?”
Matteo didn’t answer.
Because they both knew.
Weeks.
“Since we were exposed,” Ari said, his voice lower now. “She’s been in her head since then. On her phone. Reading things. Thinking things.”
His chest rose slowly.
“She didn’t talk to me.”
That part—
That part bothered him more than anything.
“She dealt with it alone,” Matteo said.
“Yeah,” Ari replied. “And now I’m dealing with this.”
Silence settled again.
“Go to her,” Matteo said finally.
Ari shook his head.
“No.”
Matteo stared at him.
“You’re really going to stay here?”
“For now.”
“For how long?”
Ari didn’t answer immediately.
“Until she figures out what she wants,” he said finally.
Matteo exhaled slowly.
“And what if she already knows?”
Ari looked at him.
Hard.
“Then she should have said it clearly,” he replied.
And that was it.
He didn’t leave.
Not that night.
Not the next.
Day one—
The messages slowed.
Shorter.
More spaced out.
Elena: Please talk to me.
Then—
Nothing.
Day two—
Silence.
No calls.
No messages.
And somehow—
That felt worse.
Ari sat on Matteo’s couch, phone in his hand, staring at the empty screen.
No name lighting it up.
No vibration.
No sound.
Just silence.
And for the first time—
It didn’t feel like space.
It felt like distance.
Real.
Growing.
Permanent.
Ari leaned forward slowly, elbows on his knees, phone still in his hand.
His jaw tight.
His mind running.
Because two days ago—
She couldn’t stop calling.
Now?
Nothing.
And the question hit him harder than anything else—
Was she giving him space…
Or letting him go?
- Writer
