The next few days passed like a soft blur, each moment with Antonio folding itself into a quiet memory I couldn't stop replaying. He became a constant presence—walking beside me in the corridors, sharing inside jokes during class, leaving folded notes with silly doodles on my desk. It was like he'd always been part of my world, and now that he was here, everything felt strangely incomplete without him.
One afternoon, while we were packing up after class, he glanced at me with that unreadable expression of his. "Selene," he said, voice quieter than usual, "if I tell you something... will you promise not to freak out?" My heart skipped a beat. There was a pause, a look in his eyes I hadn't seen before—like he was holding onto something much bigger than I expected. And for the first time since he'd walked into my life, I realized—Antonio had secrets, and I was just starting to scratch the surface.
I swallowed hard, nodding. "I won't freak out," I said, though my voice betrayed the nerves curling in my stomach.
Antonio exhaled and looked away for a second, as if choosing his words carefully. "There's someone… back at my old school. Her name's Alina. She's—well, she was my girlfriend. We were together for a while."
The word girlfriend echoed in my mind, shattering the warm bubble I had wrapped around us these past days. I felt like the floor had tilted beneath me. The silence that followed was suffocating.
"Oh," I managed, trying to force a smile. "So… you're still together?"
"It's complicated," he replied, and that didn't help. If anything, it made the weight in my chest worse. Complicated? What did that even mean? Were we just a distraction for him, a way to escape whatever mess he left behind?
I turned away, blinking back the sting in my eyes. "Why are you telling me this now?" I asked, my voice softer than I intended. I didn't want to sound hurt—even though every word felt like it carved a little deeper into my chest.
"Because you matter," he said quietly. "More than I thought someone could so soon."
But his words, instead of soothing me, only made it worse. Because deep down, I realized—I had already fallen. And now, I wasn't sure if I was the one catching him, or the one crashing.
I didn't respond. I couldn't. The words sat heavy on my tongue, but none of them made it out. I gave him a small, stiff nod and gathered my things, avoiding his eyes. He called my name once, gently, but I just walked away—my heart pounding, my throat tight. The hallways felt colder now, like the light that had followed him into my life was already slipping away.
That night, I lay in bed staring at my phone, his message still unread. "You okay?" it said. I wanted to scream, to cry, to forget the way his smile had made me feel special. Instead, I locked my screen and turned to face the wall, wondering how someone could be so close and still never truly be mine.