Between Us Novels & Stories

Because maybe this is the actual tragedy of us. Not that we don’t love each other enough. That we love each other so much neither of us knows how to survive it.

He was staring past it, jaw tight, eyebrows drawn. He looked like he was barely holding it together. We made eye contact across the asphalt. For the first time since this morning, there was no coldness between us. No posturing. No anger. Just worry. Worry that mirrored mine exactly. He didn’t walk over. I didn’t either. We just stood there for a moment, watching each other from a distance neither of us tried to close. Maybe because neither of us had anything helpful to say. Maybe because the only words that mattered were the ones neither of us had:

The quiet tension in the office had become its own living, breathing thing. For the first two days after their return, Isabelle and Damian maintained a perfect, professional distance. They communicated through emails, despite being in adjacent offices. They spoke in hushed, businesslike tones during project reviews. The wall was up. But every so often, the facade would crack, a brief, silent admission of what had passed between them in the storm.

Not yet. In this moment, there are no threats. No Elias. No Grace. No looming war. There’s just us. And for the first time in what feels like lifetimes… We are truly, wholly one.

Still confused, I looked up at him and he squinted. "Do we?" With that rhetorical question, he walked out of the classroom, leaving me behind. Flustered and confused with my heart beating fast. What was that? Do we? KEZIE'S POV "You guys are what!?" I flinched at her tone even though it was over the phone. Sighing and groaning, I kept stuffing my books in my bag as my best friend screamed over the phone. "God, Naza, why did you miss school? Why are you sick?" She questioned herself as she blamed her body for missing the drama.

"Let's all cheers to death!!!" I yelled while holding a shot glass in my right hand. Me and my close friends are here in BGC just to make some fun, I'm too bored at the house so we decided to hang out just for tonight. Everybody is so happy around me, there's someone who is making out at the near table but I just ignore them. All of us are here to make some fun and I don't want to be the person who ruins the whole mood of this place.

It makes some sense, though. ‘Maybe.’ ‘Oye, I need to leave to meet someone from the Times. Will you be able to handle everything here?’ he asks. ‘Yes, I will.’ That is our code for a date. We have a few people working under us and we don’t want them to think that we go out during office hours for movies and dates. Because that’s something we do a lot! So whenever we have to go out, we say we have to meet ‘somebody from the Times’. I wave him goodbye, he checks his noodle hair in the mirror and leaves.

"Look. I'm sorry. I'm just really...upset. Okay. I admit it, I am upset." "It's okay. I was being stupid. If you didn't want to talk about something, I should have understood. I'm sorry too." I smiled at him. No matter how infuriating Brian might be, he was understanding and liked that about him. "It's not your fault." I assured him. We had reached quite far away from our group. They were still visible to us. And they hadn't stopped what they were doing before. A comfortable silence settled between us. I looked at the sand below, imagining shapes in it that weren't there.

“Should this be done?” “Yes, I was determined and you can't step back, Laurel, for your own sake, for Aamber's sake, remember?” “B-but I didn't expect it to be this fast. I mean, you said we had a chance to get to know each other first, you said we had time for a long engagement so… so—” “I've ordered tickets, everything is prepared there. Aamber will follow us later. It can't be undone and now we are on our way there.”

A single weekend had somehow made the distance between us feel longer than it had before. "Did you sleep well?" he asked quietly. "Not really." His smile disappeared. "Why? Are you okay?" "Because I kept thinking about everything." He leaned against the shelf. "Everything meaning?" "Us. The secret. Our parents. What happens if somebody finds out." Lucas lowered his voice. "Hey. Look at me." I did. "We don't have to solve our entire future today, Keitu." "Easy for you to say." "Is it?" I hesitated.