Prolouge

       Serena Blaire

"I’ll be gone for a while."

That’s what Tristan Salvatore said the last time I saw him properly.

Not over text. Not through a screen, but in person.

Standing just outside the studio building, bag slung over his shoulder, hair slightly messy and he still looked so majestic...so gona be mine. But that's not it.

Him saying goodbye..to him it may mean small, like it wasn’t going to matter.

But it did.

It mattered more than anything... to me.

“You say that like it’s nothing,” I remember telling him, trying to sound normal. Trying to sound like I wasn’t already feeling something shift in my chest.

He gave a small smile. The kind he always gave when he didn’t want me to worry. The kind that always kept me at ease..but now...I didn't want to see that smile, not when I'm about to lose him.

“It’s just training overseas, Serena. It's not permanent.” He said as he leaned over the wall.

“Then don’t make it sound like one.” I felt my voice crack in that one. I felt my cheeks burn.

He sighed, looking away for a second before his eyes came back to me.

Those eyes always ruined my ability to think properly.

“I’ll still be here,” he said softly. “We’ll still talk.”

We.

That word meant more to me than I ever said out loud.

So I nodded because I believed him...like I wasn’t already scared.

We didn’t say the important thing.

We never did. Even when I stood closer to him than I should have.

Even when his fingers brushed mine more times than coincidence could explain. Even when silence between us started feeling louder than words.

There was always something stopping us...or maybe we were just too late from the beginning.

The first few weeks after he left, everything felt normal. He texted me every day like he said he would. It felt like he was still with me...

Everyday, he would message me the smallest things… the kind that shouldn’t matter, but somehow always did.

A random “you awake yet?” in the morning that made my heart trip before I even opened my eyes.

A “you’re overthinking again, aren’t you?” like he could read me through a screen.

A “I saw something today that looked like you” that made me smile at nothing for no reason.

Stupid little messages.

Simple words.

But somehow… they filled my entire day like they were the only thing keeping it together.

And the worst part?

I didn’t even realize I was tripping for him harder and harder through every single one.

And I would reply immediately.

Always.

Sometimes too fast.

Like I was afraid if I waited, he’d disappear between my thoughts.

“Stop acting like I’m fragile,” I typed once.

“You are,” he replied.

I remember smiling at my phone like an idiot.

“I’m not.”

“You are to me.”

And I didn’t know it then… but that line stayed with me longer than anything else.

We kept talking like that.

Daily.

Constant.

Until one day, my messages stopped delivering.

At first, I thought it was nothing.

“Tristan?”

Sent but not delivered.

I tried again.

“Are you busy?”

Sent.

Not delivered.

Then again.

“Hey… did something happen?”

Still nothing. And I felt my heart dissapear onto my chest.

I stared at my screen, waiting for the three dots that never came.

I told myself it was network issues.

That he’d reply later.

That he always replied later.

But later turned into days.

And days turned into something heavier I didn’t know how to carry.

I didn’t know what he was doing on the other side.

I didn’t know that his messages were still coming.

Every single day.

Sent.

Sent.

Sent.

Into a silence neither of us understood.

Because somewhere in between countries and companies and contracts I never saw, his communication was cut off.

And mine… was already gone.

So I did the only thing I knew how to do.

I waited.

Until waiting started feeling stupid.

Until hope started feeling embarrassing.

Until love started feeling one-sided.

Maybe it was all along....maybe it was just me, and it was all one-sided.

And without knowing it, I've already lost what I said was once mine...