estella thought she had the perfect life, the perfect friends and the perfect boyfriend that was from a fairy tale movie who she thought she would married and live happily ever after. unfortunately on prom night her fantasies was crushed by a sudd...
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the fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting an unflattering glow on the linoleum floor of the school cafeteria. estella, perched on a wobbly metal chair, avoiding eye contact.
matt, sitting across from her, was fiddling with the straw in his iced tea, his brow furrowed in concentration. he was actually trying to be subtle about how he was staring at her.
It had been six months since their disastrous prom night, a night that ended with Estella's mascara running down her cheeks and Matt's hasty retreat into the night. They hadn't spoken since. The silence, a tangible presence, hung heavy in the air between them. This lunch was a fragile truce, a hesitant attempt at navigating the minefield of their broken relationship.
'So, uh, how was your summer?' Matt finally asked, the words coming out a little rushed. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as Estella that everything was fine.
Estella shrugged. 'It was okay. Went to the beach a couple of times.'
They both knew this was a lie. Estella had spent most of the summer holed up in her room, drowning her sorrows in reruns of 'The Office.' It felt like a lifetime ago that they had been planning their summer together, dreaming of road trips and lazy picnics.
Silence descended again, thicker this time. The cafeteria buzzed around them, a cacophony of chatter and clanging trays, yet all Estella could hear was the echo of her own thoughts: 'What are we doing here? Why are we pretending everything is fine when we both know it's not?'
'So,' Estella started tentatively, 'Did you hear about the new student council president?'
Matt's face lit up with a genuine smile. 'You wouldn't believe it, he's a total nerd. Took over the debate club already.'
Estella laughed, a bright, spontaneous sound that surprised even herself. The tension, even for a moment, seemed to lift.
They might have been exes, but there was still a connection, a shared history that neither of them could fully erase. It was awkward, a little painful even, but maybe, just maybe, it was a starting point. The beginning of a new chapter, where they could be friends, perhaps, or simply two people who remembered a summer that had once held so much promise.
Estella tapped her acrylic nail against the table, the sound echoing in the otherwise quiet diner. Matt, across from her, fidgeted with the napkin, his eyes darting between the menu and the window. Neither of them had spoken in over a minute.
'So,' Matt began, his voice a little too high. 'The weather's been... interesting lately.'
Estella chuckled, a tense, forced sound. 'Yeah, it's been really hot.'
They were both at that awkward stage of ex-relationships, where the silence was thick with the ghost of something lost, but they weren't quite ready to acknowledge it. It was only a few months since their very public break-up at prom, the memory still stinging a little. Estella had been the one to call it off, a decision that felt undeniably right at the time, but now, sitting across from him, something about the way his eyebrows would furrow when he spoke, or the way he unconsciously bit his lip when he was thinking, made her chest tighten.
