Chapter 5: THE SILENCE

Jules POV

He freezes mid-step. For a moment, he just stares at me like I'm a ghost he wasn't expecting to see. Then his expression shutters closed, becoming carefully blank.

"Jules," he says quietly. "What are you doing here?"

The distance in his voice hits me like a. This is the same person who whispered my name as he made love to me just three days ago, who held me close and promised we'd figure everything out together.

"I needed to see you," I say, taking a step closer. "We need to talk."

"No, we don't," he replies, adjusting his bag strap and starting to walk away.

I hurry after him. "Yes, we do. Adrian, please. Just five minutes."

"There's nothing to talk about," he says without looking at me, his long strides eating up the sidewalk.

"Nothing to talk about?" I repeat, my voice rising. "Our relationship is exposed, my family has disowned me, the entire campus is treating me like a nobody, and you think there's nothing to talk about?"

He stops abruptly and turns to face me. For a second, I see a flash of the Adrian I know—the one who looks at me like I matter, like I'm worth fighting for.

But then the mask slides back into place.

"This was a mistake," he says.

"What was a mistake?" I whisper.

"All of it," he replies, his voice flat and emotionless. "Us. This whole thing. We should have known better."

I stagger backward like he's physically struck me. "You don't mean that."

"I do," he insists, but he won't meet my eyes when he says it. "We got caught up in something that was never going to work. Now it's over."

"Just like that?" I ask, tears starting to blur my vision. "Two months together, and you can just turn it off like a switch?"

"It's better this way," he says, finally looking at me. But his eyes are cold, distant, like he's looking at a stranger. "A Clean break, no more complications."

The word 'complications' hits me. "Is that what I am to you? A complication?"

He doesn't answer, which is somehow worse than if he'd said yes.

"Adrian, I know you're scared," I try, desperation creeping into my voice. "I know this is messy and difficult and not what we planned. But we can figure this out together. We can"

"There is no 'we,' Jules," he cuts me off. "There never really was."

The words are so cruel and so deliberately hurtful, that I actually stumble backward.

"That's not true," I whisper. "What about everything you said? About how you felt? About us being worth the risk?"

For just a moment, his carefully controlled expression cracks. I see pain flash across his features, they looked so raw and real. But he recovers quickly, his jaw tightening.

"I said what you wanted to hear," he says, and his voice is ice-cold now. "That's what guys do when they want to get with someone. Surely you're not that naive."

The accusation is so vicious that I actually gasp out loud.

"You're lying," I say, though my voice sounds hollow even to me.

"Am I?" he asks, shouldering his bag again. "Think about it, Jules. Coach's daughter, star quarterback's little sister. Dating you came with perks. Until it didn't."

"I don't believe you," I say, but even I can hear how weak I sound.

"Believe whatever you want," he replies with a shrug. "But stay away from me. I've got a meeting with your dad tomorrow morning about my scholarship, and I can't afford any more drama."

The reminder of Dad's threat makes my stomach lurch. "Adrian, about that I'm so sorry. I never wanted"

"Just stop," he says, cutting me off. "This conversation is over."

He starts walking away again, and panic claws at my throat.

"So that's it?" I call after him. "You're just going to pretend none of it mattered? Pretend we never happened?"

He pauses without turning around. "That would be best for everyone."

"Best for everyone or best for you?" I ask, my voice cracking.

This time, he does turn back. The look he gives me is so cold, so completely devoid of the warmth I've come to crave, that I feel something inside me break completely.

"What do you want from me, Jules?" he asks. "You want me to fight for us? To ride in on a white horse and tell everyone they can go to hell? That's not who I am."

"Then who are you?" I whisper.

"I'm a guy who made a mistake and is trying to fix it," he says. "Nothing more."

He walks away then, and this time I don't follow. I stand frozen on the sidewalk, watching him disappear around the corner of the dormitory building.

The silence he leaves behind is deafening.

I sink down onto the nearest bench, my legs suddenly too weak to hold me up. Students walk past some staring, some whispering, some pretending not to see me at all.

But all I can hear is Adrian's voice saying the words that just shattered what was left of my heart: I'm a guy who made a mistake and is trying to fix it.

My phone buzzes with a text from Tyler: Hey, saw you talking to Cross outside the training facility. You okay?

I stare at the message, wondering how many people witnessed my humiliation. How many saw Adrian walk away from me like I meant nothing.

Instead of responding, I turn my phone off and sit in the growing darkness, trying to figure out how I went from having everything to having absolutely nothing in the span of seventy-two hours.

The worst part isn't losing my family or my friends or my financial security.

The worst part is that the person I thought loved me enough to risk everything just proved that I was never worth the risk at all.

And now I'm completely, utterly alone with the consequences of choices we both made but only I'm paying for it.