Chapter 15 – The Space Between Us
818 Words
By the end of the week, Lena started noticing the changes.
Small ones, mostly. Subtle.
Like how people stopped whispering after she walked past and started doing it while she was still in earshot. Or how some teachers gave her that look—the one halfway between disapproval and disbelief, like they’d lost faith in her 4.0 GPA soul.
And then there was her mom.
“Oh, Lena,” she’d said Thursday night, glancing at her daughter’s phone lighting up with “Jace B”. “That’s… not the boy with the motorcycle, is it?”
Lena had nearly choked on her tea.
“I—he’s just a friend,” she said. Badly. Very badly.
Her mom raised a perfect eyebrow. “You know, friends don’t usually honk from the driveway and rev an engine loud enough to make our dog hide under the couch.”
Lena had laughed it off. But deep down, the tension was growing. And it wasn’t just about her reputation.
It was the fact that she was slipping.
Not away from her morals, or her grades, or even her standards.
She was slipping into something. Into him.
And that scared her more than anything.
⸻
“Do you ever feel like we’re living in a movie?” Lena asked one afternoon, stretched out on the hood of Jace’s car. It was parked near the old train tracks—far enough out of town that no one could see them, close enough that the wind still smelled like civilization.
Jace tilted his head toward her. “If this were a movie, you’d be the girl everyone roots for.”
Lena smirked. “And you?”
He rolled onto his side, propping his head up with one hand. “I’d be the guy they all warn you about.”
“That’s not very original.”
“Neither are high school stereotypes.”
She laughed, but it faded. “What if they’re right, though?”
“About what?”
“About us. About you being wrong for me. About me making a mistake.”
Jace’s smile vanished, slow and deliberate. “Do you think I’m a mistake?”
“No,” she said quickly. “But sometimes… it feels like everyone else does.”
He stared at the sky for a long moment before saying, “You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think people hate what they don’t understand. And I think it freaks them out that the perfect girl might fall for the broken boy.”
Lena looked over at him. “You’re not broken.”
He chuckled, bitter. “I’ve got more cracks than glass on a car wreck. I’m just good at hiding them.”
She reached over and took his hand. “You don’t have to hide them from me.”
Jace looked at her like he wanted to believe it—really believe it—but didn’t know how.
So he did what he always did when things got too real.
He kissed her.
And she let him.
⸻
Back at school, the rumors kept evolving.
Lena overheard someone call her “Blackwood’s latest phase” in the hallway. Someone else suggested she must be getting something out of it, if she was willing to risk her reputation.
The old Lena would’ve crumbled.
This Lena just kept walking. Her chin up. Her eyes forward.
But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
In the girls’ bathroom that afternoon, she stood at the mirror and stared at her reflection. Same brown eyes. Same soft curls. Same girl who color-coded her notebooks and used to sit in the front row of every class.
But now?
Now there were shadows under her eyes. A fire in her chest. A war in her head.
She was falling for someone the world said she shouldn’t love.
And she couldn’t stop.
⸻
That evening, Jace texted her:
Jace: Can I see you tonight?
Lena: I can’t. Too much homework. And my mom is suspicious.
Jace: That’s fair.
Jace: But I miss you already.
Lena stared at the screen, heart aching.
Because she missed him too.
But she also needed to breathe. To think. To figure out how to hold on to him without losing herself.
So she didn’t reply right away.
She stared at the words until the typing bubble appeared again.
Jace: You okay?
Lena took a deep breath and typed:
Lena: I think I need a minute. Just a small one. Just to process.
The typing bubble disappeared.
And for two minutes, there was nothing.
Then:
Jace: Okay. Take your minute. I’ll be here when it’s over.
And that—that right there—was why she wasn’t running away.
Because for all his rough edges, Jace Blackwood was learning how to be soft. For her.
And maybe that was scarier than anything.
Because softness breaks easier than steel.
- Writer
