Chapter 60 Chapter fifty-Six
Alex’s point of view
The quiet was the worst part.
Not the loud, ringing silence that follows a fight, but the slow, creeping kind that settled into everything afterward.
The kind that made every sound feel too sharp, my alarm in the morning, the scrape of a chair in class, the buzz of my phone when it wasn't him.
I started noticing the absence before I noticed anything else.
Demi wasn't at the usual table during lunch.
His seat sat empty like a missing tooth, obvious once you saw it, impossible to stop seeing after.
I caught myself glancing at the door every few minutes, half-expecting him to walk in with that distracted look he got when he was thinking too hard.
He didn't.
I told myself it was fine. That it was normal. And it was expected to happen.
I was the one who said we couldn't be together.
That thought repeated in my head like a defense, like if I said it enough times it would stop hurting.
It didn't.
By the end of the day, the ache had settled deeper, heavier, like something lodged behind my ribs. I felt hollowed out, scraped raw from the inside.
Every time I thought about him walking away, really walking away this time, my chest tightened until breathing felt like work.
This is what you wanted, I reminded myself.
Space.
Safety.
Control.
So why did it feel like grief?
I went through the motions for days.
Demi didn't text me
He didn’t call me,
He didn’t show up in places I expected him to be.
It was like he'd erased himself from my life with a precision that hurt more than anger ever could.
Chris asked about him once.
"Have you heard from Demi?" he said casually, like he was asking about homework.
"No," I replied.
Chris studied my face. "You look like hell."
I almost laughed.
At night, I replayed everything. The bottle spinning.
The look on Demi's face when I spoke. The way his voice broke when he said he loved me.
The way I'd stood there, frozen, while he walked away crying.
I'd thought saying we can't be together would bring relief.
Instead, it left this empty, echoing space where he used to be.
One night, I found myself scrolling through our old chats, my thumb hovering uselessly over the keyboard.
I miss you.
The words sat there, unsent.
Because missing him didn't change the truth. I still didn't know what I was. I still flinched at the idea of being seen. I still felt fear claw up my spine at the thought of someone knowing.
And yet-
I closed my eyes and saw him laughing in the dark, his head tipped back, the soft way he said my name when he thought no one else could hear.
My chest ached sharply.
"I didn't know what I felt," I whispered into the empty room.
But the silence didn't answer.
Days passed.
I learned what it meant to live without him in small, brutal ways. No one waiting for me after class. No quiet conversations on the walk home. No warmth beside me when the world felt too loud.
I told myself I'd chosen this.
That didn't stop my heart from breaking all over again every time I saw someone who looked like him from behind.
One evening, I stood at my window watching the streetlights flicker on, the same dull yellow as the night everything fell apart.
I pressed my forehead against the glass.
"I didn't say no because I didn't care," I said aloud, voice barely there. "I said no because I-."
It was like I still can’t form the words to complete that sentence.
Maybe one day I'd understand what my heart had been trying to tell me all along.
Maybe one day I'd learn how to say his name without it hurting.
But for now, all I had was this quiet, aching certainty:
I'd let go of the one person who saw me clearly-, who saw me for who I am.
and I hadn't even known what to call the pain that followed.
It wasn't fear.
It wasn't regret.
It is something i can’t really put my finger on.