It wasn't a fight.
Not a fallout.
Nothing loud. Just... a shift.
The night breeze that once carried laughter now felt colder, quieter.
Ren came home from that non-existent trip with Harvey and barely spoke. His cousin didn't bring it up. Tulip hadn't messaged again. And he didn't message either.
He wanted to.
He almost did.
But there were only so many times he could type and delete without it feeling pointless.
The next morning, things were "normal."
A simple "gm" from Tulip.
A dry "gm" back from Ren.
It wasn't forced just... empty. Like they were going through motions out of habit, not warmth.
Their streak continued.
So did the silences.
No new memes.
No late-night chess.
No spontaneous "come online fast" texts with ten exclamation marks.
Instead, Tulip started journaling again.
Something she hadn't done since January.
She wrote about how strange it felt still talking, still caring, but feeling like strangers walking parallel. She doodled a sun with clouds over it and drew Ren's name underneath, then scratched it out gently.
Meanwhile, Ren buried himself in tutorials and projects. Hours passed with YouTube tabs open and headphones plugged in, not because he was learning, but because he was running.
They hadn't stopped talking. But it didn't feel like talking anymore." might match the emotional decay even better.
"Had lunch?"
"Yeah."
"Cool."
"U?"
But beneath the "cool" and "u?" was a shared knowing.
That something was off.
That something had changed.
That maybe, this was how stories faded not in storms, but in silence.