CHAPTER THREE: Unfinished Conversations
791 Words
The library in Navesh hadn’t changed. It still smelled like old books and dust warmed by sunlight. Avelon slipped inside unnoticed, craving the silence she once used as a hiding place. The same librarian sat behind the desk—Miss Hartley, now with silver strands through her bun, but the same sharp eyes.
Avelon nodded at her politely and disappeared into the stacks. She wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Just space to breathe. To not be seen.
She found a quiet corner between fiction and poetry and sank into one of the old reading chairs. Its arms were frayed, and the cushion sagged just slightly, like it had held too many daydreamers. She opened a random book, but didn’t read a single word. Her thoughts pulled her elsewhere—always back to Damian.
What hurt most wasn’t that he left. It was that he hadn’t explained. No fight. No closure. Just silence. A silence she’d carried across cities and years.
The chair beside hers creaked.
She looked up.
Damian.
Again.
This time closer. Intentional.
“Mind if I sit?” he asked, voice low.
She should’ve said no. She didn’t. Instead, she watched him lower himself into the seat like it cost him something.
“I didn’t follow you,” he said quickly. “I come here sometimes. To think.”
“Is that what you do? Think?” she asked, unable to stop the bitterness from slipping out.
He winced. “Fair.”
Avelon closed the book on her lap. “You disappeared, Damian. And now what? You show up in libraries and on bridges?”
“I didn’t mean to disappear,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Things... got complicated.”
She scoffed. “That’s not an explanation.”
“No, it’s not.” He paused. “But it’s the truth.”
They stared at each other across the short space. It felt longer. Like a canyon had opened between their chairs and they were yelling into the wind.
“Do you know what it felt like?” she asked, voice cracking slightly. “To wake up one morning and realize you were just... gone?”
“I do now,” he said quietly. “Because you’ve been gone too.”
That silenced her.
She looked away, blinking fast.
“You told me once,” he continued, “that if you ever left Navesh, you wouldn’t come back unless something broke.”
Avelon’s jaw clenched. “And here we are.”
“Both broken.”
She hated that he was right.
“What happened to you, Damian?” she asked, softer this time.
He leaned back, exhaled hard. “My dad got sick. Fast. I had to take care of things. I didn’t want to burden you. I didn’t know how to ask for help. I just... disappeared.”
“That’s not fair,” she whispered.
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”
They sat in silence again. Not the cold kind from before. This one was warmer, more forgiving. Like maybe this conversation had been waiting for them all along.
“I missed you,” he said, barely above a whisper.
Avelon’s throat tightened.
“I waited for you,” she replied.
And that was the truth.
A long beat passed.
Then she stood.
“I can’t do this here,” she said. “Not with everyone whispering and watching.”
“Then where?”
She hesitated. “There’s a place.”
---
Later, they sat across from each other at an old diner near the edge of town. The booth still had their names carved beneath the table from when they were seventeen and in love. It was faded, like their memories, but still there.
They ordered coffee and nothing else. Neither touched it.
“Do you still write?” he asked.
“Sometimes.”
“I used to read your poems,” he said. “You left a notebook in my car once.”
Avelon laughed lightly. “That wasn’t for you.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s what made reading them feel like a sin.”
She shook her head, smiling despite herself.
“I thought I’d moved on,” she admitted. “But coming back here... seeing you... it’s like the past is just waiting to pick up where we dropped it.”
“Maybe it is,” Damian said.
“No,” she said. “It’s not that simple.”
“It never was,” he replied. “But it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
They looked at each other across the table—two people older now, rougher around the edges, but still tethered by something neither of them dared to name.
- Writer
