CHAPTER THREE — The Cracks Begin

By the time sophomore year started, everything between me and Kaden still felt mostly good. Summer had been sweet—long calls, lazy days, inside jokes that stretched across weeks. Freshman year had ended with so much hope, and I truly believed we were stepping into sophomore year stronger than ever.

But small shifts always happen before the big ones.

Not dramatic changes. Not anything loud or obvious. Just slow differences you don’t catch right away.

The shift was subtle, but devastating because of how fiercely I relied on his attention.

Less texting here. Short replies there. Moments where he seemed distracted or distant without meaning to be.

Nothing intentional. Nothing cruel. Just… the intense, all-consuming focus that had defined our beginning started to splinter. It was like living in a brightly lit room, and then suddenly the wattage was cut in half, leaving everything dimmer and full of shadows.

I kept telling myself it was normal.

We were older now, busier, figuring ourselves out in a new school year. I rationalized every single gap in communication, meticulously scrolling back through our old texts, searching for the exact date, the exact conversation where the change might have started. If I didn't hear from him for an hour, the quiet felt suffocating, and I'd start drafting messages, only to delete them, fearing I would appear too demanding. I was desperately trying to find proof that I was still the center of his world, but the evidence was fading.

But the first real crack didn’t come from him.

It came from other girls.

At first, it was tiny things—girls liking his pictures out of nowhere, commenting with too many hearts or laughing emojis, acting a little bolder than they should’ve. Sophomore year was messy like that. People wanted to be seen. Wanted attention. Wanted to attach themselves to anyone who had eyes on them.

I noticed it, but I didn’t overthink it. I had accepted that Kaden was a magnetic force; it was only natural that people would orbit him. To be his girlfriend meant accepting the visibility, and I thought, foolishly, that my relationship with him was strong enough to keep the others at bay.

Not until someone reached out to me directly.

A girl messaged me—someone I wasn’t close to, but someone who knew enough to feel confident saying something.

“Just saying… you might wanna ask him who he’s been talking to.”

Short. Simple. But heavy enough to sit in my stomach like a stone.

I wasn’t angry; I was hurt. Caught off guard. Confused.

The pain wasn't just heartbreak; it was the sickening realization that the bubble of protection I'd built with Kaden's attention was vulnerable. The chaos I had run from (my family's fights) was now being replaced by a self-inflicted chaos I couldn't control. I didn’t want to believe something bad about the boy I cared so much about. And I didn’t know then that he really was doing some of the things people whispered about. Not at that moment. Not yet.

I trusted him. I believed him. Because until then, he had given me every reason to.

So I asked him about it.

And his reaction wasn’t manipulative or twisted—it was the reaction of a teenage boy who didn’t know how to deal with being questioned. He got defensive, irritated in that overwhelmed way guys get when they don’t know how to explain themselves. Not cruel. Just young. Just unprepared for the weight of relationships and rumors and expectations.

The conversation ended feeling… off. We didn't yell, but the silence after our call felt heavier than any noise. It was the kind of hollow, tense quiet that reminded me of my childhood home after a fight—a silence that felt more dangerous than the shouting. I spent the next hour replaying every word I had said, analyzing my tone, convinced I was the one who had introduced the conflict.

But afterward, he slipped right back into the boy I loved—calling me before bed, telling me he missed me, laughing with me, acting like everything was normal. And that’s what made everything so confusing.

The good didn’t disappear. It just started sharing space with moments that made me second-guess things.

Girls interacting with him too much. Little rumors floating around. Someone saying they “heard something.” His phone lighting up and him turning it face-down too quickly. Days where he acted tired or distant and wouldn’t explain why.

I started to blame myself. Maybe I was too much. Maybe I was asking for too much of his time, driving him away with my neediness. I was so used to having to manage the emotional climate in my family that I instinctively defaulted to managing the emotional climate in my relationship, always assuming my feelings were the disruptive, loud element. I would pull back, acting indifferent, terrified that if I showed him how desperately I needed his constant focus, he would leave for good.

I didn’t know what to believe. I didn’t want to accuse him blindly. I didn’t want to ruin what we had over something that might not be real.

And I wasn’t perfect either.

I cared so deeply—maybe too deeply—and every small change felt personal even when it wasn’t meant to be.

Arguments started over tiny things. They were quick, burning flares of defensiveness, usually centered on a misunderstanding or a perceived slight over attention. They weren't the drawn-out, screaming matches I’d run from, but they were loud in their own way—a violent, brief clash of wills that chipped away at the foundation of our trust. Afterward, I was always the one to apologize first, desperate to restore the peace and the all-consuming attention I craved.

Misunderstandings. Moments where we hurt each other without trying to. Moments where growing up felt heavier than either of us expected.

Back then, we weren’t trying to hurt each other—we were just young, loving each other with more emotion than we had the maturity to handle.

And even as the cracks started forming, the love was still there—the softness, the connection, the feeling that what we had was real.

That’s what made everything so hard.

Sophomore year didn’t break us.

Not yet.

But it cracked us.

And cracks spread.

I remember lying in bed one night, staring at my phone long after he stopped replying, feeling something quiet settle into my chest—not panic, not heartbreak, just a slow, heavy ache.

A whisper I didn’t want to hear:

“This doesn’t feel like the beginning.”