All Chapters of THE LINE BETWEEN US : Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

I didn’t expect the cafeteria to feel loud that day, but it did.Not loud in the obvious way, no shouting, no chaos, but in the way a hundred small sounds layered on top of each other until my thoughts had to push through them. Cutlery scraping plastic trays. Chairs dragging against tile. Bursts of laughter that rose and fell like static. The smell of fries and something overcooked hanging stubbornly in the air.I sat across from Taylor, poking at my food more than actually eating it, my mind drifting in that hazy, tender aftermath that still clung to me from the day before.Everything felt… different.Not fragile. Not cracked. Just shifted, like something inside me had quietly settled into place and didn’t intend to move again.Taylor was mid-rant, gesturing with her fork like it had personally wronged him. “...and I swear, if Professor Hale assigns one more ‘light reading’ packet that’s actually forty pages, I’m filing a complaint with the universe.”I smiled, nodding at the right p

The walk home felt wrong in a way I couldn’t name.Not dangerous. Not dramatic. Just… off. Like the world had shifted half an inch to the left and no one else had noticed.Taylor walked beside me with his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched like he was bracing against cold that wasn’t really there. Normally he filled space without trying, complaints about school food, dumb observations about people we passed, some half-baked story he’d been saving all day. Today, there was nothing.No jokes.No sighs.Not even background noise.Our footsteps synced up too perfectly on the pavement, the soft scuff of shoes against concrete the loudest sound between us. Cars passed occasionally, wind rattled dry leaves along the curb, but Taylor stayed quiet, eyes forward, expression unreadable.I waited.At first, I told myself he was just tired, then I remembered I basically ditched him at lunch to go talk to Damian.Everyone had off days. Maybe he was thinking about something

I stared at the message until the words blurred.No emoji. No joke tacked on to soften it. No lol or it’s nothing or don’t freak out. Just that, plain, heavy, sitting in my chest like a stone.I locked my phone and set it face-down on the mattress as if that might keep the words from seeping into me. My heart was beating too fast for someone lying perfectly still in the dark. I pressed my lips together and stared at the wall again, counting breaths, then cracks in the paint, then breaths again when the cracks turned into shapes I didn’t want to see.I could text him back.I should text him back.Talk about what?Are you okay?Can we talk now?My fingers itched with the impulse. Taylor and I didn’t leave things hanging. That was kind of our thing, talk it out, pick at it, joke around it until it stopped hurting or stopped mattering. Silence wasn’t our language.And yet.Something about the message felt… off. Not dangerous. Not dramatic. Just wrong in the same quiet way everything els

The morning of the exams felt like it had been put on fast-forward.Everything was clipped and sharp and loud. Chairs scraping too quickly against the floor. Papers handed out with no ceremony. Pens clicking, bags thudding, someone whispering a last-second formula under their breath. My brain struggled to keep up, like it was lagging half a second behind my body.I kept looking to my left.The exam papers landed in front of me with a soft slap. White. Clean. Untouched.I swallowed and forced my eyes down.The questions blurred together in a way they hadn’t when I revised. My pen hovered, stalled, then moved anyway, my hand answering from muscle memory more than thought. I could feel the absence beside me like a physical thing, like cold air seeping in through a crack I hadn’t noticed before.I finished early. Too early.I sat there for the remaining minutes, staring at the margin of my paper, counting the tiny blue lines, listening to my heartbeat thud too loudly in my ears. When the

The house felt wrong after the door slammed.Not quiet, empty. Hollow. Like the sound had knocked something loose inside the walls and taken it with him. I stood there for a long second with my hand still hovering near the doorknob, my chest tight, my breath coming too fast, like if I moved even an inch I might actually fall apart.So I didn’t move.I slid down until my back hit the door and sat there on the floor, knees pulled up, forehead pressed against the wood. The place where his shoulder had been just minutes ago still felt warm in my mind, like my body hadn’t caught up to reality yet.I did this, I thought.I stayed like that for a while. Long enough for the adrenaline to drain out of my limbs and leave behind that awful shaky emptiness. Long enough for my phone to buzz once on the coffee table and then go silent again when I didn’t move to check it. Long enough for my eyes to start burning even though I refused to cry yet.I didn’t want to cry alone.That thought surprised me