Ava thought walking away from Nicholas would bring clarity.
It didn't.
It brought silence.
And silence, she realized, was worse than noise when it had his name inside it.
Campus returned to its normal rhythm the next day—students laughing, rushing to lectures, pretending like nothing had happened—but for Ava, everything felt slightly off balance. Like the world had continued without waiting for her to catch up.
People still looked at her when she passed, but something had changed. The sharpness in their whispers had dulled. Now it was curiosity. Speculation. Waiting. As if everyone was holding their breath to see what the aftermath of Nicholas Wolfe and Ava would become.
But Nicholas wasn't there.
Not in class.
Not in the hallways she used to spot him in.
Not even in the places he used to linger just to be seen.
At first, Ava told herself it was a relief.
No more tension.
No more confusing stares.
No more feeling like she was being pulled in two directions at once.
But by the second day, the relief turned into something else.
Awareness.
She started noticing the empty spaces he used to fill.
The seat he usually took in lecture halls.
The group of friends who no longer laughed as loudly.
Even the corridor where they first bumped into each other felt different—too quiet, too still, like it had lost something it couldn't name.
And worst of all…
She noticed herself noticing.
That was what irritated her most.
Because she had sworn she was done with him.
Done with the confusion.
Done with the emotional pull that made her feel weak at the worst times.
But her mind didn't listen to logic.
It replayed moments instead.
His voice saying her name.
The way he looked at her on the bus.
The empty seat beside him that she refused to take.
Ava closed her eyes more than once in lectures, trying to shut it all out.
But memory doesn't listen to silence either.
Nicholas, on the other hand, had gone quiet in a way no one expected.
At first, people assumed it was temporary. That he was just giving Ava space. That he would return to his usual self once the tension cooled.
But he didn't.
He wasn't laughing as much anymore. He wasn't leading conversations. Even Jackson noticed it and tried to joke about it once, but Nicholas didn't respond the same way he used to.
Chloe tried harder than anyone else.
She lingered near him in group settings, brushed his arm when she passed, inserted herself into conversations that didn't need her.
But Nicholas wasn't reacting the same anymore.
He wasn't entertaining it.
Not fully.
Not like before.
And that alone shifted something in the air.
Because Nicholas Wolfe didn't usually pull away from attention.
But now he was.
For the first time, Ava heard someone mention it in passing.
"He's acting weird since that girl," someone said near the cafeteria.
Ava didn't ask who they meant.
She already knew.
And she hated that she knew.
On the fourth day, Ava found herself walking past the field where everything had started to blur between them.
She didn't plan to stop.
But her feet slowed anyway.
Across the grass, students were sitting in groups, laughing, living normally.
And then she saw him.
Nicholas.
Standing alone near the edge of the field.
No friends.
No crowd.
Just stillness.
Ava should have kept walking.
She didn't.
She stood there watching him for a long time, unnoticed.
He looked different like this.
Less untouchable.
Less like the version everyone else saw.
More real.
More… human.
And that was dangerous.
Because it made it harder to remember why she was supposed to stay angry.
Then Nicholas turned slightly.
And saw her.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Distance between them felt heavier than before.
Ava was the first to look away.
And walk off.
But her heart didn't follow her logic.