Empty Space

Empty Space
Months passed.
But for Cole Hunstsman, time didn’t move—it dragged. Slow. Heavy. The kind of slow that made every morning feel like he was waking up in the wrong life.
The house was quieter now. Too quiet. Emily rarely left her room except for mandated hearings; Edward was spiraling into paranoia; and Cole…
Cole had become the ghost that wandered the halls.
He sat on his bed in that same dark hoodie she always teased him about, elbows on his knees, fingers pressed to his forehead. In front of him—laid open, smoothed out, carefully unwrinkled every single day—
Laura’s letter.
The edges were soft now, worn from rereading.
The ink looked lighter from the times his thumb brushed over her handwriting.
He read it again.
And again.
And again, even though he already memorized it like a prayer he wasn’t allowed to say out loud.
He mouthed the words silently.
“Cole, please don’t look for me. If you do, I’ll never heal.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Thank you for loving me in all the quiet ways I never knew I needed.”
“Don’t wait for me.”
Those four words—don’t wait for me—
stabbed him the deepest, right under the ribs.
Because he was waiting.
Every day.
Every night.
He waited in the places she used to stand.
He lingered by the studio, fingers brushing the doorframe where she used to rest her head when she couldn’t stay awake.
He sat in his car outside her building even though she wasn’t coming home.
Sometimes he even forgot she was gone—
he would grab his phone, thumbs typing fast:
“Faye, look outside, I’ll pick you up.”
“You hungry? I’ll bring dinner.”
“Where are you?”
Then he’d freeze.
And the message would stay unsent.
The emptiness punched through him all over again.
Cole wasn’t the type to cry easily.
But grief had a way of humiliating even the strongest people.
One night, he held her letter to his chest and broke—not loudly, not like a scene in a movie—
but quietly.
Silently.
Like someone trying not to disturb a sleeping world.
He pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes, frustrated with how weak he felt… but unable to stop shaking.
He missed her laugh.
Her stupid sarcastic comments.
Her tapping his forehead when he said something cocky.
Her calling him turtle whenever he was slow.
Her falling asleep on his shoulder.
Her breathing.
Her presence.
Her.
Most of all,
Cole missed the way Laura made him feel like he wasn’t the product of a broken father and a forgotten mother…
but a person worthy of being chosen, too.
Nights stretched.
And the world kept moving without her.
Classes continued.
Sue rebuilt her life carefully, quietly guilty.
Vienna stopped asking questions.
Jacob numbed himself with work.
Edward’s lies were beginning to crack open.
Everyone moved forward.
Except Cole.
He folded the letter slowly, carefully, like it was made of glass, and tucked it back into the small wooden box he carved himself—the one with her initials etched on the lid.
Then he whispered into the silent room, the same words he whispered every night even though she asked him not to:
“I’m waiting for you, Faye.”
The truth was simple:
Cole wasn’t living without her.
He was enduring.
Barely.
And every single day, he prayed that somewhere—Italy, Rome, Florence, he didn’t know—
Laura was healing.
And that one day…
she’d find her way back.
If you want, next chapter could be:
Laura’s life in Italy — her healing, her loneliness, and how she tries to rebuild herself.

The months after Laura’s departure did not pass—they dragged.
Slow, heavy, breath after breath, like time itself was limping around Cole Hale.
His friends said he looked the same.
But everything about him had gone quiet.
He kept her letter folded in the inner pocket of his backpack—close to his ribs, where the paper could bruise him every time he breathed. Some nights, he took it out gently, as though it could shatter from one wrong touch. Other nights… he read it like a lifeline, fingers trembling at the crease where her name sat in her handwriting.
Laura.
The girl who left.
The girl who broke herself before anyone else could.
Cole stopped talking unless necessary.
He stopped teasing, stopped flirting, stopped reacting to anything that wasn’t a requirement for survival. Even his laughter—rare as it already was—had completely vanished.
His classmates whispered about it.
He’s Heartbroken.
His girlfriend left him for good
His world changed 360 degrees after that

But Cole walked through the halls like a ghost anyway, letting people believe whatever made sense.
His world had ended the night she boarded that plane.
He kept his head down, finishing assignments on time, showing up to exams early, turning in group works even when the entire group forgot. Professors praised him for the sudden discipline, the quiet maturity. They didn’t know it wasn’t discipline. It was distraction.
Better to drown in deadlines than remember how she smelled like linen and stress.
Better to bury himself in chapters, than remember how she whispered “Let’s go home,” like he was a place to return to.
Better to read her letter than to admit she might never come back.
Sometimes, when exhaustion won, Cole would sit in his parked car outside campus, head tilted back, breath trembling. His phone screen showed no new messages. Just Laura’s last delivered text—
a simple Take care, please—
left unread because reading it meant accepting she meant goodbye.
At home, Edward tried to reach out twice.
Both attempts ended with Cole locking himself in his room.
Sue checked in more often, sending messages he never answered.
“Eat.”
“Don’t disappear on me.”
“You’re not alone, Cole.”
But he felt alone.
Painfully.
Viscerally.
Completely.
Nights were the hardest.
He’d lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying every memory he never got to keep—her smile, her trembling hands, the paint on her cheek, her laugh cracking when she was shy. And when the silence became unbearable, he unfolded her letter one more time, tracing every curve of her pen strokes like they were parts of her face.
He memorized every word.
Every apology.
Every soft confession hidden between the lines.
And every night, he whispered the same thing to the empty room:
“I would’ve stayed.”
No one knew how deeply he was unraveling.
How much he was holding himself together only because Laura’s letter told him to be okay.
How finishing his degree became the only promise he could still fulfill—for himself, for her, for the version of them that almost happened.
Cole Hale survived the months without her.
But he didn’t live them.
He simply learned how to breathe again, one quiet, lonely day at a time.

Cole moved through the months like someone walking underwater—every movement heavy, every breath slow, every sound muffled.
People noticed the change, of course they did. Cole, who once carried that easy, lazy kind of confidence, now walked the halls like his shadow weighed more than his body. His eyes were quieter. His shoulders lower. His voice… almost never used.
He kept his routines sharp and unforgiving—wake up, class, requirements, lab work, home, sleep.
No more teasing remarks.
No more smirks.
No more lingering glances toward the Fine Arts building.
His world folded inward.
The only thing he couldn’t control was how often he reached for Laura’s letter.
Some nights he read it once.
Some nights four or five times, the creases deepening like they were etched into his memory.
Some nights he just held it, unopened, forehead against the paper like he could somehow breathe her in.
He never talked about her.
But everything—every quiet breath, every stiff smile, every absentminded stare—was her.
He finished his degree early by drowning himself in requirements. His professors praised him, said he looked “focused.”
But he wasn’t focused.
He was surviving.
Barely.
And then Michelle reappeared.
She began small—messages, missed calls, voicemails that grew more frantic each day.
Cole, we need to talk.
I’m scared… please, call me.
I think I’m losing the baby.
You owe me this.
He ignored every single one.
But Michelle never understood silence as a boundary. She only heard it as an invitation to get louder.
One afternoon, after a particularly exhausting lab session, Cole stepped out to find her waiting outside the building—skin pale, eyes hollow, wearing desperation like perfume.
“Cole,” she breathed, reaching for him.
He stepped back so fast she froze mid-reach.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was low. Cold. A version of him Michelle had never faced.
She trembled. “I… I thought maybe we could fix things. You don’t have Laura anymore, right? I can be here for you.”
His jaw tightened.
“Michelle,” he said slowly, like each word burned. “Don’t say her name.”
She flinched. “C-Cole… I’m pregnant. You can’t just leave me like this—”
He laughed under his breath, humorless, exhausted.
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” he whispered. “I’m done with your traps. Your lies. Your drama.”
Michelle blinked rapidly, panic rising. “I’m telling the truth—”
“No.”
One word. Sharp. Final.
“For the first time in my life,” Cole continued, “I’m choosing peace. And you are not part of that.”
She swallowed hard, stunned.
“If you show up again, if you try to reach me one more time…”
He stepped closer—close enough for her to finally see it: the grief that carved him hollow, the fury barely contained, the exhaustion of losing the girl he loved because of people like her.
“…I will make sure you never come near my family again.”
Michelle’s breath hitched.
Cole didn’t wait for her to respond.
He walked away—hands shaking, chest tight, eyes burning. He wasn’t angry at her.
Not really.
He was angry at himself.
At the timing.
At the universe.
At every second he wasted before Laura left.
He went home that night and reread Laura’s letter again, whispering her name like a prayer he wasn’t sure anyone heard.
Months had passed.
But he wasn’t healing.
He was simply hurting quietly.
And in the silence, the absence she left in his life grew heavier…
and colder…
and impossible to fill.