Chapter Text
The first time I see her again, I almost trip over my own feet. Which is stupid, because I’m not exactly the type to get knocked off balance. But there she is — standing in the doorway of the apartment I’ve been renting for the past two years, holding a box labeled “law school stuff” in handwriting I know better than my own.
I haven’t seen her in person in… hell, four years? Not since that day she walked out of my life. Not slammed-the-door, screaming match, throwing-things kind of walked out. She just… stopped holding my hand one day. Stopped smiling the way she used to when she saw me. Stopped answering my calls unless I dialed twice. And then one afternoon, somewhere between her study group and my practice, she told me she couldn’t do it anymore.
I didn’t understand back then. I thought she was stressed. Overworked. Tired. I didn’t realize until months later — years, maybe — that what she’d really been saying was: I needed you to love me out loud, and you didn’t.
The problem is, I did. I just didn’t know how to say it without feeling like I was going to choke on the words. She’d tell me I love you like it was the easiest thing in the world, and I’d respond with a kiss, or by fixing her bike, or buying her favorite snacks. I figured she knew. But apparently, knowing isn’t the same as hearing it.
Now she’s my roommate. For a whole damn year.
The team rented this place out with an extra room, said I could take it if I found someone to split rent with. I figured I’d get some quiet guy from the local university or maybe another trainer from the gym. Instead, I got… her. Broke law student, apparently. Guess rent’s cheaper than pride.
She looks the same, but also not. The hair’s a little different, her clothes are more practical, but the eyes — they’re the same. Warm, steady. The kind that used to see right through me. The kind I’ve been avoiding looking into since she walked in with that first box.
And we’re fine. Totally fine. Not awkward at all. We can share a kitchen without talking about the fact that we used to make out in the same space at 2 a.m. We can sit on opposite ends of the couch without remembering what it felt like to fall asleep tangled up in each other. We can pass each other in the hallway without touching, without thinking about the way her hand used to fit perfectly in mine.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
But the truth? Every time she leaves a mug in the sink, every time I hear her laughing on the phone in her room, every time I smell her shampoo drifting out of the bathroom — I feel it. That pull. That ache. That stupid, stubborn memory of the girl I loved so much I didn’t know how to say it.
And now, we’re just roommates.
At least for a year.