It started with a lunch table conversation Tulip didn't ask for.
"Why are you still talking to him?" Aanya asked, frowning over a half-eaten pasta bowl. "No offense, but Ren's... not from our world."
Tulip blinked. "Our world?"
"You know what I mean," Aanya said, voice dropping like a secret. "You live in a different zone, T. The clubs. The trips. Your mom knowing everyone. His life's... not like that. He wouldn't get it."
Tulip set her fork down slowly. "He doesn't need to get that. He gets me."
Aanya leaned forward, resting her chin in her palm. "Does he, though? You're always the one texting first. Planning stuff. Defending him. You used to talk about things you wanted, now you just... talk about him."
Tulip's fingers curled under the table. "That's not fair."
Aanya didn't fight her. She just offered a tired smile. "I know you care. But not everything has to be so hard to keep alive. You deserve someone who meets you halfway. Not someone you have to reach across a canyon for."
Tulip laughed sharp, soft, a little too practiced. "This is ridiculous."
But it wasn't. Not entirely.
They weren't wrong. Not entirely.
She thought of that one night the worst one when everything at home had crumbled under sharp voices and slammed doors.
Ren had stayed on call with her till 3 a.m., saying nothing profound, just listening. Occasionally muttering dumb things like, "You should've screamed back in German, they wouldn't have known what hit them." She had laughed through tears.
That was the night she fell for him, maybe. Or the night she realized she already had.
She didn't tell Ren about the conversation.
She almost did had her thumb hovering over the send button, heart dragging behind it like a heavy secret. Then backspaced. Then opened a sketch app instead.
She doodled about it two people on opposite cliffs, arms outstretched, fingers nearly touching. She stared at the drawing for a long time. Didn't send it either.
Ren stared at her last message longer than usual that night. Typed a reply. Deleted it. Tried again. Backspaced. He locked his phone and told himself to stop being dramatic.
Something shifted after that.
Subtle like a room rearranged while you were asleep.
She still sent him memes. Still replied to his late-night thoughts.
Still said, "goodnight, weirdo," with a fondness
A fondness that felt like muscle memory, not emotion.
But she stopped asking to meet.
When Ren asked how her day was, her replies got shorter.
He noticed.
He always noticed.
But he didn't know what to ask.
Didn't know if he was allowed to ask.
So he played it cool replied with his usual dry wit, sent her playlists she didn't open, made her laugh on voice notes she no longer replied to.
And Tulip?
She watched those unread messages pile up like unopened letters from a version of her that was slipping away.
She missed him.
Or maybe, she missed the version of them that wasn't tangled in doubts and definitions.
She wanted to say, I'm scared they're right. I'm scared you'll leave me first. I'm scared I'll believe them if I let myself think too long.
But all she said late one night, after a voice note he'd sent just to check in was this:
"We're fine. I promise."
And she meant it.
At least, she wanted to.