College wasn't what I thought it would be.
The walls were cracked, the desks wobbled, and the professors looked more tired than the students. Sometimes, when I walked into class, it felt like stepping into a waiting room where dreams came to die.
I worked mornings at the café near campus, afternoons in class, and nights doing deliveries. Most days, I ate standing up, my back against some wall.
When I finally got home, I'd scroll through my phone, through her world.
Lena, in New York.
Lena, laughing with her friends at some rooftop party.
Lena, under the bright lights of New Columbia University, the city glowing behind her like it was built just for her.
We were still together. Just… living on different planets.
We tried to make our long distance relationship work; letters, video calls at impossible hours, between my shifts and her classes.
Sometimes I'd pick up, still wearing my café apron, and she'd laugh.
"Are you ever not working?" she'd tease.
I'd grin, pretending it's nothing. "Gotta keep up with your fancy city life somehow."
She'd tell me about her professors, her roommate who talked in her sleep, and the art exhibit she visited over the weekend.
I'd nod and smile, trying not to sound like I was counting the seconds until my next shift.
The connection lagged more often than not.
She'd freeze mid-laugh, mouth open, eyes bright, a living photograph on my cracked screen.
I'd stare at it longer than I should, like maybe if I looked hard enough, I'd feel her warmth through the glass.
Love through a screen felt like trying to hold smoke in my hands.
She'd ask, "Are you okay?"
And I'd lie.
Always.
"Yeah. I'm fine."
Even when I wasn't. Even when I hadn't eaten in twelve hours, or when Dad's shouting echoed through the house, or when Grandma's coughing kept me up all night.
I wrote her often; long messages about my days, my classes, the strange characters I met at the café, who are inspiring my writing these days.
She replied late, sometimes short. Busy with classes, essays, projects. Still she would find time to catch up later, through video calls mostly.
It was one of those calls that started like nothing.
Just her face on the screen, half-lit by the city lights pouring through her dorm window. She was eating something out of a paper cup, hair in a messy bun, the kind of chaos that looked beautiful only on her.
"Guess what?" she said between bites. "Dad's leaving next week. Germany."
I blinked. "Leaving?"
"Yeah," she laughed softly. "He's expanding the company. Said he'll probably be there for a year or two. Maybe longer."
There was a small silence between us. The kind where you can hear everything you're not saying.
"Are you okay with that?" I asked finally.
She shrugged. "Yeah. I mean… I'll be fine. You know me."
That smile, that brave, practiced one. It didn't reach her eyes this time.
I smiled back anyway, because that's what we did now. We both pretended.
Nate had always been one of the few adults who saw me, not just the quiet kid from the wrong house. He cared. He listened. When he looked at Lena, it wasn't the way most parents looked at their kids; it was like he saw her light and wanted everyone else to see it too.
And now he was gone.
Off to build something new.
Leaving her alone in a city that swallowed people whole.
Funny thing about distance, it doesn't just separate people.
It teaches you who'll still reach across it.
She kept talking. About her classes, her friends, the new café near campus; but I wasn't really listening.
All I could think was how small her voice sounded through the static.
When we hung up, I sat there staring at the screen until it dimmed. My reflection looked back: tired eyes, messy hair, coffee cup gone cold.
For a moment, I imagined her sitting by that window after the call, phone in her lap, staring at the same kind of quiet.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
The nights got longer after she left.
At first, we still talked every night; about her classes, her professors, the new coffee shop near her dorm. I used to fall asleep to the sound of her voice. A few months later, things started to change. Now I fall asleep waiting for her text.
8:45 p.m.
Last seen 3 hours ago.
I stared at the screen until my eyes hurt, then finally put the phone face down beside me. Grandma coughed from her room. Dad mumbled something in his sleep, the beer can slipping from his hand and hitting the floor with a dull thud.
I picked up my textbooks again, trying to focus. The words blurred. Then finally, a buzz.
Lena: Hey, sorry. Got caught up. Long day.
Me: It's okay. How was class?
Lena: Tiring. But good. You?
I typed I miss you. Deleted it.
Typed It's been rough lately. Deleted that too.
Me: Same here. Just busy.
The dots blinked for a second. Then disappeared. No reply.
I stared at the empty chat, at my reflection faintly staring back through the glass.
She was still there, just quieter.
And somehow, that silence started to feel like a new kind of love. One where I had to imagine her voice, her laugh, her warmth.
Dad started drinking more after she left. Grandma moved slower. The bills piled up like they were breeding on the counter. I worked extra shifts at the café, came home smelling like burnt coffee and exhaustion, and still checked my phone the second I walked through the door.
Nothing.
When she did call, it was always short, her voice half-drowned by laughter in the background.
"Sorry, Ash," she said one night, "I'm at a friend's birthday. Can I call you tomorrow?"
I smiled, even though she couldn't see it. "Yeah, sure. Go have fun."
"Miss you," she said, but it sounded like a habit. Someone called her name, and the line went dead.
I stared at the blank screen, at my reflection again, that same half-smile stuck on my face.
Maybe this is what love becomes when distance wins. Not loud or angry. Just quiet. But it's ok. As long as she still loves me, I'm fine with everything.
Maybe love was supposed to hurt a little just enough to remind you it was real.
I never told her about the bills. Or that Dad fell one night and I had to drag him to bed alone.
Or that Grandma forgot who I was for a few minutes and smiled at me like a stranger.
I told her none of it.
Because I wanted her world to stay bright. And mine… mine could handle the dark.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
Weeks blurred together like smudged ink.
Classes, work, the same tired streets. Despite spending months at my new college, I wasn't able to know or connect with any fellow student. I neither had time, nor interest in that.
I kept checking my phone between shifts, scrolling through our old texts like they were proof she was still real.
A few messages at first: Sorry, busy!, Exams are crazy, Call you soon.
Then nothing.
I told myself she'd call when she could.
That she hadn't changed, just her schedule had.
But silence has a way of sounding louder when it comes from someone you love.
So I wrote her instead.
Not real letters, just scraps of thought in my notebook.
Lines of poems I'd never send.
Sometimes I just wrote her name until it didn't look like a word anymore.
Sometimes I wrote her name just to remember how it sounded.
I thought maybe if I kept saying it in my head, she wouldn't fade.
One evening, Grandma called me into her room. She'd been coughing more lately; the kind that rattled in her chest like loose change. But she still smiled when she saw me.
"Sit, little leaf," she said, patting the chair beside her.
I hadn't heard that nickname in years.
When I was small, she used to tell me I reminded her of a leaf that clung to the branch even when winter tried to tear it off.
I sat beside her, and she reached for my hand, her palm warm and dry.
"You've got that storm in your eyes again," she murmured.
"Just tired," I said. Lying came easier these days.
She gave me that look, the kind that made you feel like your soul had just been caught sneaking out past curfew.
"You think too much and feel even more," she said. "That's a dangerous mix, Ash. But it also means you're stronger than you think."
I didn't answer. My throat felt too tight.
"People leave," she went on softly, "and sometimes, they come back different. You can't wait for the same version of them. You just have to keep growing, even if they don't see it."
Her words stayed with me long after she drifted off to sleep.
The house was quiet, except for the ticking clock and the sound of her breathing.
I sat there for a long time, staring at her hand resting on the blanket.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe love wasn't about holding on.
Maybe it was about learning to stand still, even when the wind tried to pull you away.
But despite all this hope and strength Grandma made me feel again, I still went to my room to write this:
She called me little leaf. And I guess I still was…
clinging to a branch that didn't even know I was there.