One night, we were buried in my class presentation, papers and books scattered across the table like fallen leaves. My hair was a mess, my eyes bleary, but Jacob sat across from me with his usual calm patience, highlighting sections I needed to polish while sneaking in comments that made me laugh in spite of my stress.
I was about to print my final draft when the printer sputtered its betrayal—out of ink.
"I'll go buy some," Jacob said immediately, already standing and reaching for his jacket.
"It's just a few blocks away, I can—"
"No," he cut me off with that half-smile of his, the kind that always ended an argument before it started. "Stay and finish up. I'll be back before you notice."
And just like that, he was gone, the door clicking softly behind him.
Minutes later, his phone buzzed on the table. I ignored it at first, but the screen kept lighting up with the same unregistered number. Normally, I wasn't the type to meddle in someone else's business—but after more than a year together, answering each other's calls had become second nature. The only exception was family, since we hadn't told them about us yet.
(Why? Simple. We lived under the same roof. Inappropriate, they would say. But Jacob refused to move out—and just as stubbornly, he refused to let me move out either.)
So, without hesitation, I answered.
"Hello?"
For a moment, silence. Then, a soft, female voice.
"…Jacob?"
My breath caught. My hand tightened around the phone, heart stumbling into a sudden sprint.
"Who is this?" I managed to ask.
The softness in her tone vanished, replaced by a sharpness that carried authority—accusation, even. I froze, my voice tangled in my throat. Before I could recover, the call dropped. Seconds later, the screen lit up with a message: Call me back.
When Jacob returned, holding the ink cartridge in one hand and a plastic bag of snacks in the other—because of course, he'd think of that too—I told him everything. He didn't interrupt, just listened with that quiet intensity of his, before reading the messages himself. A long sigh escaped his lips, his shoulders sinking as his expression darkened.
"It's my aunt," he finally said. His voice was calm, but there was a heaviness under it I couldn't ignore.
I wanted to ask what she said, but the silence on his face told me enough. Without another word, he placed the phone down, pulled me into his arms, and whispered, "Goodnight."
That embrace felt different. Warmer, tighter—like he was holding on to something he feared losing.
Later that week, the pieces came together. Whispers reached me first, then finally the truth from him: his aunt had told his mother about the call. She suspected Jacob was living with his girlfriend. To avoid further conflict, he moved out, finding another place to stay.
I didn't protest. I knew he was doing it for us.
But what cut deepest was learning that his aunt wanted us apart. Years later, Jacob would admit what she told him directly:
"You're too young for a relationship like this. Break it off before it ruins your future."
And though he never showed it back then, I now understand how heavy those words must have been for him.
The first night after Jacob moved out, the silence in the house was unbearable. I hadn't realized how much of my days had wrapped themselves around him—the sound of his footsteps in the kitchen, the clatter of pans when he cooked breakfast, the way he hummed under his breath when he thought I wasn't listening.
Suddenly, everything felt too quiet.
I burned my first attempt at cooking rice without him, laughed bitterly at my own failure, and ended up eating crackers for dinner. Before, Jacob would have teased me, rolled up his sleeves, and saved the meal. Now, the empty chair at the table stared back at me.
We still saw each other every day on campus, still walked together after class, but it wasn't the same. He no longer knocked on my door in the morning to wake me up. He wasn't there to slip an extra snack into my bag "just in case." He wasn't there to remind me, in a hundred little ways, that I wasn't alone.
And yet, he never complained. Not once. He made it seem effortless, like the distance was nothing at all. He'd smile, crack a joke, or squeeze my hand in the hallway as if to tell me: I'm still here. Don't worry.
But in the quiet of my room, when I folded my notes alone or stared at the untouched second pillow on my bed, the fear lingered.