After graduation, the days lost their shape.
Without school to divide them, time stopped arriving in neat blocks. Mornings bled into afternoons. Afternoons slipped quietly into evenings. The house felt smaller somehow, like it was waiting for instructions it no longer received.
Entrance exams didn't begin immediately.
That was the strange part. There was a pause — just long enough for uncertainty to settle in. Long enough to feel restless without knowing where to put it.
I set up my desk properly for the first time.
Books stacked by subject. Notes arranged carefully. A schedule taped to the wall, written in pencil so it could be adjusted without feeling like a failure. I told myself structure would help. That if I treated preparation like routine, it wouldn't feel as overwhelming.
Most days, it worked.
Some days, it didn't.
I studied in the mornings, when the house was quiet and my thoughts stayed mostly in line. By afternoon, concentration grew harder to maintain. I took breaks I didn't need, stared out the window longer than necessary, listened for sounds that weren't coming.
Sometimes I wondered what her days looked like now.
I didn't ask.
We messaged, but not often.
At first, the conversations were familiar.
Started exam prep today.
Same here.
How's it going?
Okay. Slow, but okay.
Short exchanges. Reassuring in their ordinariness.
Then, gradually, they spaced out.
A day passed between replies. Then two. Sometimes more. Not because either of us stopped caring — I knew that — but because there was always something else to do. Another chapter to review. Another test to attempt. Another quiet decision to stay in and keep going.
When she did reply, her messages felt careful.
Sorry, busy today.
All the best for tomorrow.
Let me know how it goes.
I told myself this was normal.
It was.
That didn't make it easier.
I started studying at the library in the evenings.
The same long tables. The same soft hum of air-conditioning. Different faces now — students from other schools, all of us gathered by the same purpose. No one spoke much. We nodded occasionally, exchanged polite looks, but kept our distance.
I liked it there.
It felt anonymous.
One evening, as I packed my bag to leave, I caught myself glancing toward the entrance without knowing why. The habit surprised me. There was no reason to expect her there. She had her own places now. Her own routines.
Still, the thought lingered longer than it should have.
At home, nights grew quieter.
Dinner conversations became brief. Everyone seemed to understand that this was a period meant to be endured rather than discussed. After eating, I returned to my room, closing the door gently behind me.
Sometimes, when I paused between chapters, my phone sat face-up on the desk.
I didn't check it.
I didn't want to notice how long it had been since the last message.
Weeks passed like that.
Spring deepened. The air warmed. Evenings stayed light longer, though I rarely noticed unless I looked up at the time and felt surprised. Outside, the town carried on as usual. Trains passed on schedule. The crossing bell rang and fell silent again. Life moved forward without hesitation.
One afternoon, I received a message from her.
Which entrance exams are you focusing on?
I stared at the screen for a moment before replying.
Still deciding. You?
The reply took longer than it used to.
Same. Thinking about a few options.
I typed a question, erased it, then typed another.
Are you studying near home?
There was a pause.
Mostly.
That was all.
I set the phone down, feeling foolish for expecting more. The conversation hadn't ended badly. It hadn't ended at all. It had simply reached a place where neither of us knew how to extend it naturally.
Later that night, as I reviewed notes I'd already read twice, I thought about the things we used to talk about without effort.
Nothing important.
Everything important.
Now, every word felt like it needed a reason.
As exams drew closer, pressure settled in more heavily.
Practice tests filled the days. Scores rose and fell unpredictably. Some mornings I woke up confident. Others, convinced I had already fallen behind. I learned to live with that uncertainty, to treat it as background noise rather than something that needed constant attention.
Still, there were moments when it pressed too close.
One evening, after a particularly bad mock test, I walked to the river without thinking. The same bridge. The same low concrete edge. The water moved steadily below, unchanged.
I didn't sit where we had sat.
I stood instead, hands in my pockets, watching the current move past.
I wondered if she ever came here alone too.
The thought felt intrusive, so I pushed it aside.
When the exams finally began, everything narrowed.
Days were measured by test times and travel routes. I woke early, ate quickly, reviewed notes I already knew by heart. At the testing center, I sat among strangers, listening to the same instructions repeated over and over.
During breaks, students checked phones nervously. I didn't.
I focused on the next section. The next paper. The next step.
After the first exam, she messaged me.
Hope it went okay.
I read it once, then again.
It did. Yours?
Not sure. But it's done.
I smiled faintly at that.
That's something.
Yeah.
The conversation ended there.
By the final exam, exhaustion had settled in completely.
Relief came, but it was muted, cautious. No one celebrated yet. We all knew this wasn't the end — just another waiting period.
Results would come later.
Decisions later still.
That night, I lay awake longer than usual, staring at the ceiling, listening to the distant sound of a train passing through the town.
I thought about how preparation had become its own kind of distance.
Not just from her, but from everything else. From the version of myself that had wandered aimlessly through afternoons, that had believed time was abundant.
Now, time felt expensive.
Carefully spent. Carefully withheld.
I wondered whether, when this was over, we would know how to find each other again.
Or whether we were already learning how not to.