Chapter 18 Elias Breaks
Elias POV
I don’t break in public.
That’s the rule I didn’t realize I’d been living by until now.
People think confidence is loud. They think it’s about walking into rooms with your chin high and your shoulders back, about refusing to flinch when eyes follow you, about wearing softness like armor.
What they don’t see is the effort it takes to stay upright when the world is always waiting for you to fold.
I’ve learned how to carry myself. How to be deliberate. How to look like I’m untouched by whispers and stares and the quiet violence of being discussed like a concept instead of a person.
Most days, it works.
Today, it doesn’t.
\---
It starts small.
It always does.
A glance held a second too long.
A laugh that feels sharp instead of amused.
A pause in conversation when I walk past.
I notice everything. I always have. I just pretend I don’t.
I cross the quad in a skirt I’ve worn a dozen times before—nothing dramatic, nothing new. Soft fabric. Neutral color. Comfortable shoes. The kind of outfit that feels like myself without trying to prove anything.
Still, eyes follow.
They always do.
Usually, I let it roll off me. Today, it presses in.
I feel exposed in a way that has nothing to do with my clothes.
\---
I don’t see Noah.
That shouldn’t matter.
It shouldn’t.
And yet, the absence sits heavy in my chest, like a skipped beat I can’t correct.
I tell myself it’s fine. He’s busy. He’s always busy. Publicly excellent, privately disappearing.
I don’t chase.
I never have.
But there’s a difference between refusing to beg and realizing you’re alone in something you thought was shared.
\---
By the time I get back to my dorm, my head aches.
I drop my bag by the door and sit on the edge of my bed, staring at nothing. The room feels too quiet, too still, like it’s waiting for something I don’t know how to give.
My phone is face-up on the desk.
Silent.
I don’t check it.
I don’t need to.
The silence is loud enough.
\---
I’ve always known how people see me.
The idea of me, anyway.
The bold one.
The unashamed one.
The one who doesn’t need anyone.
It’s flattering, in a way. It’s also a lie.
Confidence isn’t the absence of fear.
It’s the decision to keep moving despite it.
And lately, I’m tired.
\---
I think about the way Noah looks at me when he thinks no one’s watching.
Not hungry. Not ashamed.
Conflicted.
Like I’m something he wants and fears in equal measure.
I told myself I could live with that.
I told myself I didn’t need more.
But the truth—the one I keep carefully folded away—is that I wanted him to choose something. Anything. Even if it wasn’t me.
Indecision hurts more than rejection.
\---
My phone buzzes.
Finally.
My heart jumps before I can stop it.
It’s not him.
It’s a group chat. Some campus thing. Notifications piling up like static. I swipe them away harder than necessary, my chest tight, my throat burning.
I don’t cry.
I sit there and breathe and let the disappointment settle into my bones like cold.
\---
The mirror catches my eye as I stand to change.
I pause.
The person staring back at me looks… smaller.
Not physically. Not in any way anyone else would notice.
But the confidence—the practiced ease, the quiet assurance—it’s cracked. Just enough to show the doubt underneath.
I touch my own wrist, grounding myself.
You are still you.
I repeat it silently.
It doesn’t land.
\---
Later, I walk. I don’t know where I’m going. Campus at night feels different—less performative, more honest. Shadows soften everything. People blur into silhouettes.
This is usually when I feel strongest.
Tonight, I feel hollow.
I pass a group of students laughing, carefree, untouched by the constant negotiation of identity. I don’t envy them exactly. I just feel… separate.
Like I exist slightly out of sync with the world.
\---
I stop near the athletic fields without realizing it.
The lights are off. The stands empty.
This is his territory. His certainty. The place where he knows who he is.
I sit on the cold metal bench and let myself feel it.
All of it.
The wanting.
The waiting.
The quiet ache of being something someone can’t admit they need.
For the first time, the thought slips in uninvited:
What if I’m wrong?
Not about him.
About myself.
About being strong enough to stand here indefinitely, half-seen, half-kept, always just outside the lines of someone else’s life.
The realization hits hard.
I don’t want to be a secret forever.
\---
My breath shakes.
Just once.
Then again.
I press my palms into my thighs and bow my head, hair falling forward, shielding my face even though no one’s around to see.
This isn’t a breakdown.
It’s worse.
It’s quiet.
It’s the slow, sinking understanding that confidence can’t carry you through everything—that at some point, you have to be held, or you start to crack under your own weight.
A tear slips free before I can stop it.
I wipe it away immediately, embarrassed even though I’m alone.
Get it together.
But the command feels weak.
\---
I don’t cry long.
I never do.
But when I stand, my legs feel unsteady, like I’ve walked farther than I realized.
Something has shifted.
Not dramatically. Not irreversibly.
Just enough.
\---
Back in my room, I sit on the bed again, phone in my hand this time.
I don’t text Noah.
Not because I don’t want to.
Because I can’t keep being the one who absorbs the impact of his fear.
I stare at the screen until it dims.
Then I set it face-down.
For the first time since this started, I don’t feel powerful.
I feel human.
And the thought that scares me more than anything else settles quietly into place:
If he doesn’t choose soon,
I might have to.