All Chapters of Aria: Scales of Love: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

A week later, we were at the mall, trying to salvage the weekend. As we walked past the food court, and I saw him. Tim. He was with a couple of his friends, laughing and shoving each other. Our eyes met for a brief, horrible second. He smirked, a slow, arrogant smirk that made my skin crawl, and then deliberately looked me up and down before turning back to his friends and saying something that made them all laugh.I froze, my blood turning to ice.Jude felt me stiffen. He followed my gaze, and his entire body went rigid. "Don't look at him," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "He's not worth it."But it was too late. The old wounds, the humiliation, it all came rushing back. Jude saw the look on my face and immediately started steering me away. "Come on, let's go. Let's get out of here."I hadn’t run into Lola again for a while. It was like she'd crawled back into whatever hole she'd come from after the party. But one day, as I was leaving school, I saw her leaning against a expen

The weeks after our fight were a period of careful, deliberate healing. The fight over UCLA had left a scar, a new insecurity for me to contend with. But Jude was true to his word. He was more attentive, more patient, more present. He didn't just tell me he loved me; he showed me in a hundred small ways every day. He'd leave notes in my locker, bring me my favorite coffee without being asked, and spend hours on the phone with me at night, just listening to me talk about my day. Slowly, I started to believe him. I started to trust that we were stronger than the distance.With spring came a new, exciting kind of pressure: PROM.I was sitting with Roxy, Lily, and Sam at our usual lunch table, my mind blissfully blank, when Marco plopped down beside me, slinging his arm over my shoulders dramatically. "Aria, my dear, my love, the light of my life," he began in his most theatrical voice. "I have a question of the utmost importance that is plaguing my very soul."I rolled my eyes, laughing.

The summer that followed was our own personal paradise. With no school, our time was our own. We spent long, lazy days at the beach, our bodies tangled together on a blanket in the sand, kissing under the hot sun. We had picnics in the park, went to the movies, and spent countless nights in his room, the windows open, listening to the cicadas while we learned every inch of each other's bodies. The intimacy between us deepened, evolving from the frantic, desperate need of our first time to a slow, sensual exploration that left us both breathless and sated.But as August waned, a bittersweet melancholy began to settle over us. The day of his departure was looming. The boxes were packed and stacked against the wall of his room, a stark, cardboard reminder of what was coming. We tried to ignore them, to pretend they weren't there, but they were a constant, looming presence."I can't believe you're actually leaving in two days," I said softly, tracing the patterns on his bare chest as we l

The first few weeks of my senior year were an exercise in loneliness. It was a specific, gnawing kind of emptiness that had settled deep in my bones, a constant companion to the dull ache in my chest. The house felt too big, the silence in the rooms Jude used to occupy echoing with the absence of his laughter and his chaotic energy. My bed felt colder, a vast expanse of sheets that only seemed to highlight the missing weight of his body beside mine. The hallways at school felt cavernous, a swirling sea of unfamiliar faces where I used to have my anchor. Jude had tried his best to stay true to his word. He called every night, at first. Those first weeks, his voice would be the last thing I heard before I fell asleep, a low, tired rumble through the phone that made the two hundred miles between us feel a little more manageable. But as his new life at the University of Florida took hold, those calls became shorter, less frequent. Football practice, team meetings, weight training, study s

The next day at lunch, I was listlessly pushing a tater tot around my tray, leaving a greasy trail in the puddle of ketchup. The cafeteria noise was a dull roar in my ears, the chatter of my friends a distant buzz. I was lost in my own little world of misery, a world populated by faceless college girls and two hundred miles of empty highway."Okay, spill. What's wrong? You've got that 'my dog just died' look," Roxy said, sliding into the seat across from me and stealing a tater tot from my tray. She popped it into her mouth, her sharp eyes missing nothing.I sighed, giving up on my pathetic lunch. "Jude's just… busy. It's fine." The words tasted like ash in my mouth, a flimsy shield against the truth."Uh-huh. Fine," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You know, this is the part where the distance gets real. The honeymoon phase of him being gone is over. Now it's just… the phase. The 'he's-building-a-new-life-and-you're-not-in-it-yet' phase. You gotta be strong now.""Thanks f