ʟɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴘᴇᴇᴅ | 𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙟𝙖𝙚𝙜𝙚𝙧

5. 𝙎𝘾𝘼𝙍𝙔 𝙇𝙊𝙑𝙀

005, 𝙎𝘾𝘼𝙍𝙔 𝙇𝙊𝙑𝙀

 .⋆𐙚 🍒

SOME WEEKS STRETCH OUT LIKE RUBBER BANDS. OTHERS SNAP. 

This one somehow managed to be both—stretched so thin it felt like I might see through myself, and yet gone in a blink, like someone had hit fast-forward without telling me. 

Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. Ten thousand minutes. 

Not that I was counting or anything.

It wasn't like anything major happened. No stolen cars. No shady back-alley deals. No green-eyed devil leaning over me, murmuring threats and promises in the same breath. Calling me chicken. Just life. 

Early morning classes that I always zoned out in.

Endless reading lists and late nights finishing assignments

Working at the busy cafe just off campus on main street, dealing with asshole first years. 

Trying to sleep, which as always was a difficult task. 

Normal things. 

Except nothing felt normal anymore. 

It was like the world had shifted half a degree to the left when I wasn't paying attention. Everything felt just slightly wrong now—too bright, too loud, too sharp around the edges. I kept waiting for it to settle, for the feeling to fade, but it didn't. If anything as time move forward, it only pressed harder. 

And the worst part of all of it?

He didn't call. Didn't text. Didn't show up at my door demanding loyalty or blood or fifteen grand in a duffle bag. Nothing. 

Radio silence.

I knew it should have been a relief, but for whatever reason it wasn't.

Maybe it was because every time I closed my eyes, I could still feel the ghost of his hand along my jaw, still hear the low scrape of his voice against my skin, still feel the way the air around me seemed to thin and spark whenever he leaned in too close

I'll see you later, Trouble.

The memory sent a shiver down my spine. 

And the worst, most humiliating part of it all—the part I didn't even want to admit to myself—was that some dark, reckless part of me wasn't dreading it. 

Some part of me was waiting.

And I couldn't even begin to wrap my head around why.

I let my head fall back against the cool leather of the booth I was sitting in. The common area in the student centre of campus was bustling with life as always, people sitting with their friends talking and laughing, others eating their dinner, some—like me— were studying, typing away on their laptops or writing in their notebooks. 

My fingers absent-mindedly traced shaped on the textbook page I had open in front of me as my mind continued to wander.

Why had I agreed to something so reckless? So stupid? 

It wasn't like me. At least, it wasn't supposed to be. 

Between Hitch and I, I was supposed to be the good one. The safe one. The one who said no to fake ids and Friday nights at clubs. The one who said no to skipping class to smoke weed or get drunk. The one who said no to getting in cars with boys who smelled like trouble and tasted like mistakes.