CHAPTER 5:THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US
517 Words
CHAPTER 5:THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US
The next few days on campus felt different for Amelia.
It wasn’t obvious to anyone else, but she could feel it—the slight shift between her and Williams. They still talked, still walked together sometimes, still exchanged normal greetings, but something unspoken now sat between them.
Williams was not as open as before.
He smiled when necessary, replied when spoken to, but he no longer lingered like he used to. Even when he was physically present, part of him felt far away.
Amelia noticed everything.
At first, she tried to ignore it, telling herself he was just stressed or busy. But deep down, she knew it was more than that.
One afternoon after lectures, she finally decided she had had enough of guessing.
She found him sitting alone under a tree near the engineering block, looking down at his phone but clearly not focused on it. For a moment, she stood there watching him before walking closer.
“Williams,” she called softly.
He looked up quickly, as if caught off guard. “Oh… hey.”
Amelia sat beside him, leaving a small space between them.
“You’ve been distant again,” she said calmly. “Even after everything last week.”
He sighed and leaned back slightly, staring ahead instead of at her. “I’m not avoiding you.”
“But you’re not really here either,” she replied.
That sentence made him go quiet.
For a while, neither of them spoke. The wind moved lightly through the trees, and the noise of distant students filled the silence around them.
Williams finally broke it.
“You don’t understand what this is doing to me,” he said quietly.
Amelia turned toward him. “Then explain it to me.”
He hesitated. That hesitation said more than words.
“I don’t want to complicate your life,” he said finally. “We come from different places… expectations… everything. It’s better if I keep some distance before things get messy.”
Amelia frowned slightly. “So you’re deciding that for both of us?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“That’s not fair,” she added.
Williams looked at her then, really looked at her. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting,” she said, her voice firmer now.
That statement caught him off guard.
Amelia continued, softer this time. “If you care about me—even a little—you don’t get to just disappear and call it protection.”
His expression tightened, like he was fighting something inside himself.
For a moment, it looked like he might finally say everything he was holding back.
But instead, he stood up.
“I need time,” he said.
And then he walked away.
Amelia stayed there, watching him leave, her chest heavy in a way she didn’t fully understand yet.
Not anger.
Not confusion.
Something closer to fear—fear that whatever was forming between them might slip away before it even had a chance to become real.
And for the first time, Williams didn’t look back.
- Writer
