Almost Something

It’s been two months.

Two months of late-night calls, random memes, voice notes that trail off mid-thought.

Two months of almost saying things they shouldn’t.

Two months of feeling more than they admit.

Every day, they talk.

Not always for long, but enough. Enough to blur the lines. Enough to make it feel like something.

But now... something’s off.

Xander still replies. Still laughs at her jokes. Still sends her pictures of his tattoos, of the city lights from his rooftop, of his chipped black nail polish.

But something’s missing.

His texts are slower.

His voice notes are shorter.

The weight in his words—lighter, like he’s pulling away without moving.

Lia feels it.

Like a draft in a closed room.

She stares at his texts longer than she used to. Rereads them, hoping to find something she missed. A hint. A reason.

He hasn’t said anything.

And maybe that’s the problem.

Because neither has she.

She still texts him every day.

Good morning here.

A song she liked there.

A thought she couldn’t shake, because she knew he’d understand it.

He always replies.

But now, it feels like he’s on the other side of a wall she can’t see.

Her friends notice.

“Why are you still talking to him?” Angel says, not unkindly. “You’ve never even met him, Lia.”

“I know,” she mumbles.

Angel: Then why does it hurt so much when he pulls away?

She doesn’t answer.

Because how do you explain a feeling that isn’t supposed to exist?

There’s no label.

No definition.

Just two people, on opposite sides of a screen, who let each other in without realizing the door had been locked to everyone else.

They never said what this was.

But somehow… it mattered.

It shouldn’t have—but it did.

Because one night, in the middle of one of their usual 2 AM spirals about tattoos and pain thresholds, Xander said it.

"Let me know when you're getting your next tattoo… I’ll get something too. Or maybe a piercing. Same day."

He said it casually. Like it was a throwaway line.

But to her, it echoed.

It sat in her chest, blooming quietly, stubbornly.

She read it again and again.

Smiled like an idiot in the dark.

Screen lighting up her face while the rest of the world slept.

And for a second, she felt less alone.

But then came the questions.

The fears she never voiced.

Should she get inked that day?

Would it mean something if she did?

Would it mean too much?

Because she knew—deep down—that one day he might stop texting.

Stop sending half-laughed voice notes.

Stop being there.

And she’d be left with something permanent.

Something stitched into her skin.

And the ghost of someone who used to care enough to want to match it.

Angel found out.

“You’re not seriously planning to get a tattoo on the same day just because he said that, right?”

Lia didn’t answer.

Angel: You’re pushing every other guy away, LIA For someone who’s just… pixels. A voice. An idea, for some online Guy?

But he wasn’t just an online Guy

He was the only one who saw her when she stopped performing.

The only one who didn’t flinch at her darkness, her silence, her messy mind.

The only one who didn’t want to fix her. Just… stayed

And yeah, maybe she was scared of how much that mattered.

Of how far she’d let herself fall for a boy she couldn’t touch. Couldn’t look in the eyes. Couldn’t pull back from if he ever left—because he knew too much of her already.

So when she picked up her phone the next morning and typed:

LIA: Hey, thinking of getting a new one this weekend.

She waited.

Waited for a reply that didn’t come for hours.

When it did, it was simple.

Xander: Cool. I’ll book mine too.

Three words.

But her heart caught on them anyway.

And she couldn’t tell if that was comfort or fear.

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