It had been a week since the beach.
Seven full days since I'd seen James hand in hand with Alana. Since the shock in my chest turned to stillness. Since the fire finally burned out and left only smoke.
The kind that lingers long after the flames have died, clinging to the walls of your soul, stubborn and acrid. I hadn't cried,not really. The tears had dried up somewhere between denial and resignation. I'd gone to class, smiled when expected, laughed at Cami's jokes, even managed to finish a paper that had been due for weeks. But inside, everything had quieted. The ache was no longer sharp..it was dull, a constant throb that reminded me I was still healing. That something had cracked deep inside me, not in a loud, dramatic way, but like a fracture beneath the surface,silent, slow, dangerous. I didn't miss James. Not exactly. I missed the version of him I thought was mine. The comfort of a story I had told myself. And now, I was left rewriting everything. Alone, yes but strangely at peace. Because for the first time in a long time, I wasn't waiting for someone to choose me. I was choosing myself.
I hadn't cried since that night. Not because I didn't want to, but because something inside me had quietly shifted. The grief was still there, yes but it wasn't sharp anymore. It had dulled into something quieter, something almost manageable.
Now, I stood in front of the mirror in my dorm, brushing through my hair and eyeing my reflection like I didn't entirely recognize the girl staring back.
"Let's go," Cami called from the doorway, holding two coffees and a tote bag slung over her shoulder. "You've got a study group and I've got a class with a professor who probably hates happiness."
I smiled, slipping on my shoes. "Coming."
Campus looked brighter today. It wasn't just the sun, though that helped. It was me. I felt clearer. More present. Less haunted.
The buildings were the same, the hum of students between lectures unchanged, but the weight I usually carried felt lighter, as if I'd finally set something down. My steps weren't hurried or hesitant. I walked with a kind of ease I hadn't felt in weeks maybe months. I noticed things again: the blooming jacaranda trees near the library, the way someone had chalked a funny quote on the pavement outside the cafeteria. For once, my heart wasn't stuck in the past or tangled in maybes. I wasn't looking for him in every crowd or flinching at the sound of his name. I was here. With myself. And somehow, that was enough.
As we walked across the quad, Cami nudged me with her elbow. "You've been quiet."
"In a good way," I said. "I think."
She sipped her coffee. "It's weird, seeing you like this. Like you're… lighter."
"I feel it," I said, and it was true.
I didn't know when it happened, but somewhere between shutting that cabin door and stepping back onto campus, I'd made a choice not just to walk away from James and Jace, but to stop defining myself by who wanted me or who didn't.
I was still healing. But now, it felt like healing toward something, not just away from pain.
My study group met in a corner of the library, and for the first time in a while, I actually contributed. I answered questions. Asked some. Even cracked a joke that made Jason the guy who always chewed gum too loudly snort-laugh and nearly choke on his gum.
Later, after class, I went to the student center to print out an essay. I bumped into Zara from my Lit class.
"Hey," she said, a little surprised. "You look… well."
"Thanks," I said. "Trying."
She paused. "By the way, I heard about James. I didn't want to say anything before, but… you deserve better."
I nodded. "Yeah. I think I finally believe that."
That night, I opened my journal for the first time in weeks. Instead of writing about James or Jace, I wrote about me. About the beach. About the quiet. About the peace that came after the storm.
I wrote: I'm still here. And I'm learning to like who that is.
A few days later, I met with Professor Achieng to discuss my research paper. I expected a polite nod and maybe a few notes, but she looked at me thoughtfully after I finished explaining my outline.
"This is good," she said. "Really good. Whatever's shifted in you use it. Channel it into your work."
I smiled. "Thank you. I will."
I left her office feeling like maybe, just maybe, I was becoming someone I could trust.
The weekend came, and with it, a rare sense of calm. No texts from James. No awkward hallway run-ins. Jace had gone quiet too. And I didn't miss either of them.
Cami dragged me to a local art exhibit on Saturday,something we used to do before everything got messy. We wandered the gallery in silence for a while, until we came to a painting of a girl standing in a storm, hair whipping across her face, eyes fierce.
Cami pointed at it. "That's you."
I tilted my head. "You think I'm a mess?"
"No." She turned to me. "I think you survived one."
Sunday morning, I made tea and sat on the dorm steps with my sketchbook. I hadn't drawn in a while not since things started unraveling. But now, the pencil moved like it remembered how.
I sketched the beach. The cabin. Not James. Not Jace. Just the ocean. The sand. Me and Cami laughing with melting ice cream cones.
Our bare feet half-buried in warm sand, hair tangled by the wind, eyes squinting into the sun. I let my pencil move freely, capturing more than shapes capturing feelings. The peace of that moment. The way we had escaped everything, if only for a while. No confusion. No romantic drama. Just friendship, sunlight, and sticky fingers.
And then I drew myself, standing alone, wind in my hair, looking forward.
By Monday, it felt like the new version of me had settled in.
I wasn't healed. Not fully.
But I was healing.
And that was enough.