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Andrew sat there for a long time after Jason left, staring at the keys without touching them. The warmth in his fingers had drained, but not just from the playing. Jason's words lingered, not heavy — not even cruel — just… accurate.
Gentle people get hurt the deepest.
It wasn't a threat. It was a statement of fact. A quiet truth delivered like a line from a forgotten poem. And it made Andrew feel suddenly, sharply, seen.
He closed the piano lid softly and stood, the echo of his own song still clinging to the chapel walls. The candles flickered low now, casting long shadows across the pews, and for a moment, he allowed himself to believe he was alone — not just in the chapel, but in all the ways that mattered.
Outside, the air had grown colder.
Emma had once said she loved the evenings here — the way the sky turned to ash before the stars dared to show. Andrew could never see the beauty in that. Not when he knew the stars would only remind him of how far away everything truly was.
He walked slowly back toward the dormitory. His coat wasn't warm enough, but he didn't care. There was a hollow ringing in his chest, like the silence after applause — only no one had clapped. No one had even heard.
His thoughts were not loud, but they were persistent. Not angry, just aching.
Jason had arrived like a storm — not wild, but sure. The kind of storm that doesn't rage loudly but erodes the shore one wave at a time.
And Emma had smiled.
That was what cut the deepest.
Not that she had laughed at Jason's words. Not that she listened so intently. But that her smile — the one Andrew thought he knew, the one he once believed was his to earn — now stretched in a new direction.
He didn't blame her.
Jason was... captivating. Even Andrew could see it. The way he spoke with pauses that made silence feel deliberate. The way his eyes stayed on you just long enough to suggest depth — or danger.
Andrew was not that kind of person.
He was the one who carried her books. Who listened to her poems. Who remembered how she took her tea and never forgot the songs she'd said she loved once, years ago.
And that had always been enough.
Until it wasn't.
He passed by the empty conservatory, the windows glowing like watchful eyes. Inside, shadows of instruments stood silent — cellos and violins poised in eternal stillness. He could've gone in. Could've played something louder, sharper. Something with fire.
But instead, he went to the rooftop.
It was where they'd once skipped class together — where she'd laughed so hard she spilled her coffee down his coat and then apologized with her cheeks redder than the sunset.
He remembered that moment now like a story he had read too often. Familiar, but slowly fading.
And still, he smiled.
The cold bit at his hands. He didn't care.
He sat on the ledge, watching the clouds shift like bruises across the sky.
If this was the beginning of the end, he wanted to witness every second of it. Not to suffer. Not to wallow. But to remember — to hold on to the truth of what they had been, even as it unraveled.
He wouldn't fight Jason. That wasn't who he was.
But he would remain. Steady.
He would not disappear.
And maybe, just maybe, that would be enough to remind her —
That storms pass.
But some things stay.
And love, even unspoken, even unanswered, could still be something sacred.
He closed his eyes, letting the wind speak in his place.
And far below, the chapel bell tolled once.
Soft.
Unresolved.
Just like his song.