Page 77 of Midnight Between Us
You used to sit with me in silence and somehow hear everything I couldn’t say.
Was that nothing, too?
I keep thinking maybe I imagined it all.
Maybe I wanted it so badly I that made it real in my mind.
But then I remember your hand on mine.
The way you used to tuck your chin to your chest and smile like I was the only good thing in the world.
The way you whispered my name when you thought I was asleep.
You can’t fake that.
I know you can’t.
So why did you lie?Why did you try to hurt me on purpose?
You said I should grow up.
Like I haven’t been growing up since the day I realized I couldn’t count on anyone staying.
Like I haven’t been holding my pieces together with trembling hands, pretending it didn’t hurt when people left.
Well.You left.
Then you rejected me.
And it hurt.
But I’m still here.
Still standing.
And maybe that means something.
I miss you so much it feels like bleeding.
But I’ll keep writing, even if I never send this letter and you never read them.I just need you a little longer.Just for a few more days.
Because somehow, these letters make me feel like I’m not disappearing.
Loveyou a little less than before,
Simone
ChapterThirty-Five
Keir,
I woke up this morning and didn’t think about you first.That felt strange.Not like relief, exactly, but like I’d finally stepped out of a dream I’d been stuck in for too long.For weeks now, you’ve been the first thought in my head and the last one before I fall asleep.But today, I woke up and just ...got out of bed.
I call it progress.
I didn’t replay that call in my head again, didn’t let your voice echo—flat, cold, final—telling me to grow the fuck up.Maybe I’m finally starting to.
I made tea, sat by the window, and watched the city outside.I don’t know what exactly shifted, but something feels different.I’m still sad.Still hurt.Still trying to figure out which pieces of me belong to the girl I was before you, and which parts I’m supposed to grow into now.But for the first time in what feels like forever, I wasn’t drowning in all the could-have-beens.I wasn’t waiting.
