Things went back to “normal,” or at least the version of normal they’d always known.

  Movie nights, inside jokes, long drives with music turned up and windows down.

  But something was off. Jewel noticed it first — the way he looked at his phone more, laughed a little louder at texts she didn’t see, showed up late to plans or canceled altogether.

  He was still present, but… different.

  One evening, they sat on a rooftop watching the sun sink into the city. The kind of spot Christopher used to find just for her. But this time, she had picked it. He hadn’t even seemed that impressed.

  “You good?” she asked, trying to read him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Just… been in my head.”

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  “Anything you wanna talk about?”

  He glanced at her, then away. “Not really.”

  That was new. Christopher always used to open up to her — even when he didn’t want to. But now, it felt like there were doors she didn’t have the keys to anymore.

  Later, at dinner with mutual friends, someone joked: “Y’all still not together? Come on, what’s the hold up?”

  Jewel opened her mouth, ready to give the usual “We’re just friends” speech — but Christopher beat her to it.

  “We’re not like that,” he said, coolly. “We’re on different pages.”

  Something in her chest sank. For the first time, she felt the rejection.

  After the dinner, she walked beside him to his car.

  “You’ve changed,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Had to.”

  She looked at him, really looked — the way you study something you thought you understood, only to realize it’s become something else.

  “Are you seeing someone?”

  He didn’t answer.

  And that silence?

  It hit harder than anything he’d ever said before.