Adam shifted in his chair, the knot in his chest tightening. The silence between them was loud in his ears.
He leaned forward. "Ana... can I ask you something?"
She didn't glance up immediately. "Sure" she replied, flipping a page in her notebook.
Adam hesitated, heart hammering. "Have you ever thought about... us? Like, more than just friends?"
Ana froze.
Her pen stilled.
Slowly, she met his eyes, and what he saw there made his heart drop.
"I... don't think we should," she said carefully, her voice low but firm. "I've told you before, Adam. It's not going to happen."
"Ana, I-"
"You deserve someone who can give you what you want," she continued. "That's not me."
Adam swallowed the ache. "I understand."
But he didn't. Not in a way that made it easier to breathe.
"I don't know if I can just stop," he admitted. "You're important to me."
Ana looked away, her heart tightening. "You're a good friend. I don't want to lose that. But I can't offer you anything else. Ever."
A heavy silence fell. Adam stared at the pen in her hand, trying to steady the storm inside him.
"I won't walk away," he said finally. "You deserve someone who really sees you. I'm not going anywhere. Not yet."
Ana bit her lip, fighting the weight of it all. "I'm sorry."
He offered her a sad, quiet smile. "I'll be here, whenever you're ready."
----
Anastasia Rodriguez doesn't believe in love.
Not after the heartbreak she endured in high school and the slow destruction of her parents' marriage. For Ana, love is nothing but pain, and marriage is a trap she's determined to avoid.
Then comes Adam King-a man who believes in both love and commitment. Adam is patient, understanding, and refuses to give up on Ana, no matter how many walls she builds around her heart.
---
Some love stories are loud.
Theirs was never one of them.
Nitya has always been good at surviving-toxic silences, unfinished nightmares, memories that don't fully belong to her. She has built herself carefully, brick by brick, anger stitched into independence. People call her cold. She calls it control.
Rivan has always been patient.
He has loved her in the quietest ways-through unfinished sketches, stolen glances, and songs she never knew were about her. Twelve years of almosts. Of timing that never aligned. Of feelings that never faded.
They grew up together in the mountains.
They drifted.
They met again.
And somehow, nothing felt new-and everything did.
But some pasts don't stay buried.
Some doors, once locked, remember how to open.
And some love stories are tested not just by distance... but by truth.
In a world where everyone thinks they know them,
only they know what they've survived.
And maybe-just maybe -this time, they won't let go.
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
tropes
• Childhood frenemies to lovers.
° He fell first and harder.
° Slow burn.
° Long Distance.
° unrequited
° soft romance
° Bestfriend