Episode 7: The Space Between Us
The first day without Brian felt unreal.
Coco woke up expecting the familiar weight of anticipation — the quiet question of whether she would see him, hear from him, argue with him, almost touch him. Instead, there was only stillness.
No messages.
No presence.
No tension humming just beneath the surface.
Just space.
She lay in bed staring at her phone until the screen dimmed, then turned it face down like it had betrayed her.
I need space.
She understood the words intellectually. Emotionally, they felt like a slow amputation.
---
1. Learning How to Miss Someone
Coco learned quickly that missing someone wasn't dramatic.
It didn't arrive in sobs or cinematic breakdowns.
It came in mundane moments.
Reaching for her phone when she had a thought she wanted to share.
Turning slightly in her chair, expecting him to be there.
Editing a sentence and instinctively wondering what Brian would say about it.
She stopped going to the library at night. The silence there felt too intentional now — like a place meant for two people who no longer belonged in the same room.
Instead, she walked.
Campus paths blurred into one another as she moved without direction, replaying every conversation that had led them here.
I love you.
The words echoed cruelly in her mind.
Too late.
Too badly timed.
Too honest to take back.
---
2. Brian and the Discipline of Distance
Brian told himself he was doing the right thing.
He had meant what he said. He needed space — not to punish her, not to make a point, but to survive the fracture without losing himself inside it.
He deleted the shared document they'd worked on together.
Stopped visiting places he knew she liked.
Took longer routes home to avoid running into her by accident.
But avoidance didn't erase her.
Coco lived in his head now — in half-finished thoughts, in moments of quiet pride when he read something brilliant and wished she'd written it, in the reflex to defend her in conversations where no one else even knew she was being discussed.
He missed her voice the most.
The way it softened when she talked about things she loved.
The way it sharpened when she felt misunderstood.
The way she said his name like it meant something specific.
Brian.
No one else said it like that.
---
3. Parallel Lives
They existed in the same world, just out of sync.
Coco sat two rows behind him in class one afternoon and stared at the back of his head like it was a memory instead of a person. Brian kept his eyes forward, jaw tight, pretending he didn't feel her there like a gravity shift.
Someone asked Coco a question during discussion.
She answered clearly, confidently.
Brian smiled before he could stop himself.
Then the smile faded.
She noticed anyway.
That night, Coco wrote again.
Not letters this time. Not confessions.
Lists.
Things she would miss.
Things she was afraid of becoming.
Things she hadn't said because saying them might have changed everything.
At the top of one page, she wrote:
What if loving someone doesn't mean choosing them — but choosing not to destroy them?
She stared at the sentence for a long time before closing the notebook.
---
4. Growth That Hurts
Time passed differently without each other.
Coco threw herself into preparation for the program — reading obsessively, drafting outlines, refining her voice. She became sharper, more deliberate. Less guarded in her work. More guarded everywhere else.
Brian noticed from a distance.
Her writing evolved.
So did she.
And that terrified him more than her leaving ever had.
Because growth meant she might outgrow him.
He tried dating.
It was a disaster.
Every conversation felt thin. Every laugh felt borrowed. Every silence reminded him that there was someone who had once filled it effortlessly.
He left early, walked home alone, and admitted the truth he'd been avoiding:
Space didn't stop loving her.
It just made it lonelier.
---
5. The Almost Message
Two weeks into the silence, Coco almost broke.
She stood in her room with her phone in hand, staring at Brian's name like it was something fragile and dangerous.
It's important, she told herself.
He said unless it's important.
She typed.
I don't regret loving you.
She deleted it.
Typed again.
I don't want to leave like this.
Deleted.
Finally:
I hope you're okay.
Her thumb hovered over send.
Then she imagined his face — not angry, not cold, just tired. Protective of the space he'd asked for.
She locked the phone and set it down.
Love, she was learning, sometimes meant restraint.
---
6. The World Notices
People noticed the absence before either of them spoke about it.
"You and Brian not working together anymore?" someone asked Coco casually.
"We're just… focusing on different things," she replied.
The answer tasted like a lie.
Brian received similar questions.
"You seem quieter lately."
"Just busy."
Everyone accepted the explanations.
No one saw the grief threaded through them.
---
7. The Unavoidable Moment
The space finally collapsed one rainy afternoon.
Coco ducked into the campus café to escape the downpour — and froze when she saw him standing at the counter, damp hair curling slightly at his temples, shoulders tense like he was bracing for impact.
Brian turned.
Their eyes met.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
The air between them felt charged, like a held breath stretched too long.
"Hey," he said finally.
"Hey."
The word felt fragile.
They stood there, rain dripping, surrounded by noise that suddenly felt very far away.
"I didn't expect to see you," Coco said.
"Yeah," Brian replied. "Me neither."
A pause.
"I can go," she offered.
He shook his head slowly. "No. You don't have to."
They ordered coffee like strangers.
Sat at opposite ends of the table.
Then, inevitably, the truth pressed in.
"How are you?" Brian asked.
Coco swallowed. "Trying to be okay."
He nodded. "Same."
It wasn't enough.
But it was something.
---
8. Honesty Without Resolution
"I meant what I said," Brian told her quietly. "About needing space."
"I know," she replied. "I've been respecting it."
"I noticed."
Her heart twisted at that.
"I didn't stop caring," she said, voice barely above a whisper.
"I didn't either," he admitted.
They looked at each other then — really looked — and saw the changes already forming. The distance hadn't erased their love. It had reshaped it.
"I leave in three weeks," Coco said.
Brian flinched.
"I know."
"I didn't tell you because I wanted to hurt you."
"I know," he repeated. "But knowing doesn't fix everything."
"No," she agreed. "It doesn't."
Silence settled again — softer this time.
---
9. Leaving Without Closure
They stood to leave together, then hesitated.
Outside, the rain had slowed to a drizzle.
"I should go," Coco said.
Brian nodded. "Yeah."
She took a step away, then turned back.
"For what it's worth," she said, "you changed me."
His throat tightened. "You did the same."
They didn't hug.
Didn't promise anything.
They walked in opposite directions — closer than before, but still apart.
---
10. The Cliffhanger
That night, Brian opened the document he'd sworn he wouldn't touch again.
At the top of a blank page, he typed:
Some loves don't end. They wait.
Across campus, Coco stared at her packed suitcase and wondered whether leaving meant losing him forever — or whether some things were strong enough to survive distance, time, and silence.
Neither of them knew the answer yet.
But the space between them was no longer empty.