The Space Between Us

In a small house in Mitchell's Plain, surrounded by the familiar scent of her late mother's fabric softener and her Ouma's sharp-tongued Afrikaans, Emily Jansen is quietly learning to live with grief. Stuck between childhood and adulthood, between loss and longing, between the safety of her own walls and the world outside, Emily drifts through her days - until a Tinder match with a stranger named Nico stirs something unexpected in her.
What begins as a casual exchange of late-night texts slowly grows into an emotional connection that neither of them had planned for. Nico is older, a man from another world entirely - polished, calm, guarded. Emily is young, messy, and used to being left behind. Their conversations unfold in quiet, careful exchanges, each one peeling back layers of their loneliness and hope.
But as the boundary between online and real life grows thinner, Emily must confront the unspoken weight of her past - and the uncertain future she might want to build for herself. And Nico, facing the ghosts of a life he's tried to leave behind, must decide whether connection is worth the risk of vulnerability.
Set against the streets of Cape Town, between working-class homes and pristine art galleries, The Space Between Us is a story about grief, longing, and the quiet ways we learn to let people in