Chapter 3: All the Years Between Us

He was one of those people who could coast and still come out on top. It drove me crazy sometimes. I’d study for hours, and he’d skim the notes five minutes before the test and still beat me by a point.

There were a few who pursued him, as far as I remember. After all, he looked decent, dressed well, and among the average boys, he was above average.

Girls would giggle about him in the hallway, pass him notes, flirt shamelessly. He acted oblivious, but I knew he noticed. He just liked the attention.

By comparison, I was more well-known than him.

People knew me for my grades, my face, my reputation as the “nice girl.” It was weird, being noticed for things I didn’t really care about.

In school, the two biggest advantages were looks and grades; makeup and family background came after.

It was a small-town thing—everyone knew everyone’s business. If you weren’t pretty or smart, you had to be rich. If you weren’t rich, you had to be something else. I learned early how to play the game.

Thanks to my parents, I had good genes—people remembered me, even if they didn’t know me.

Sometimes I felt guilty about it, like I hadn’t earned it. People liked me before they knew me. It made me wary, always wondering if they’d stick around once they saw the real me.

Maybe also because I was seen often enough—after all, the top ten students’ names were printed on posters and displayed at the school entrance for a year. The school made a big deal out of it, so everyone saw those names every day. It was a weird kind of fame.

After I got together with Adam, everyone thought he was reaching up, but actually, he wasn’t.

People whispered that he was lucky to have me, that I was out of his league. But I never saw it that way. He had a confidence I envied, a way of moving through the world like nothing could touch him.

He was always just... chill, you know? Like nothing really got to him, always a little detached from everything.

It was infuriating sometimes. No matter what happened, Adam was unbothered. Tests, fights, breakups—he just shrugged it all off. I never knew if he was actually that chill, or if he was just good at pretending.

So much so that I always doubted whether he really liked me.

That was the hardest part. I wanted to believe he cared, but he never said it, never showed it in the ways I needed. I was always left guessing, always waiting for some sign that I mattered.

This was also the fatal reason for our on-and-off relationship.

We could never quite sync up. When I wanted more, he pulled away. When I pulled away, he wanted more. It was a dance we couldn’t stop, even when it hurt.

The airport was far from the hospital—the cab fare alone was nearly two hundred bucks.

I winced when I handed over my card. Two hundred bucks for a ride across town, but I barely noticed. I was too wrapped up in my own head, replaying old memories and trying not to cry in front of the driver.

By the time I got to the hospital, the body had already been taken to the funeral home.

I was too late. I stood in the lobby, clutching my phone, hoping someone would tell me it was a mistake. But it wasn’t. He was gone.

I rushed over, but still didn’t see him one last time.

I kept thinking, If I’d booked an earlier flight, if I’d driven instead, if I’d just moved faster… But it didn’t matter. I missed my chance.

I sat on the flower bed outside the hospital, staring blankly at the passersby.

The sun was just coming up, painting the sky a pale pink. Nurses in scrubs hurried by, families with balloons, a guy with a box of donuts. I watched them, wondering if any of them knew what I was feeling. Maybe we were all carrying invisible wounds.

Some were sad, some happy, some pushing patients in wheelchairs, some carrying fruit or lilies, hurrying along.

It hit me—life just keeps moving, no matter what. Everyone’s got their own story, their own heartbreak.

If people really have souls after death, maybe right now Adam is floating above me, secretly glad I didn’t see his final, broken appearance.

I pictured him smirking, saying, “Told you I’d look good even at the end.” It made me smile, just a little. Maybe he’d want me to remember him as he was, not as he ended.

In my memory, he is still graceful and easygoing.

That’s the Adam I want to keep—the one who made me laugh, who never took anything too seriously, who could charm his way out of anything. Not the boy in the hospital bed.

My heart was stirred, and I suddenly wanted to see him a few more times. After all, it had been a year, and his face was getting blurrier in my mind.

I scrolled through my phone, desperate for something—anything—to hold onto. I wanted to see his smile, hear his voice, remember what it felt like to be loved by him.

Out of habit, I opened my photo album and scrolled to last year’s photos.

There were pictures of sunsets, coffee cups, my cat curled up on the couch. I kept searching, hoping I’d missed one, hoping he’d show up where I least expected.

There were travel photos, selfies, food, pets.

But none of Adam.

Only then did I remember—last time we broke up so decisively, thinking we’d never get back together, I deleted all the photos related to him.

I’d gone through my phone, erasing every trace of him. It felt cathartic at the time, like I was reclaiming my space. Now, I regretted it. Now, I just wanted one more memory.

All these years tangled up with him, we didn’t take many photos together.

He hated posing, said it felt fake. I didn’t push. Most of our memories were lived, not captured. Maybe that’s why it hurts so much now.

I don’t like taking pictures—always felt it was enough to live in the moment. Whether good or bad, just see and remember. No need to deliberately capture it.

I used to think photos were for other people, for families who hung them in matching frames over the fireplace. We were never that kind of couple. Our moments lived in the cracks between big events, in the quiet spaces no one else saw.

Actually, it’s not that I don’t like taking pictures, just don’t like being in them myself.

I’d always duck out of group shots, make excuses to be the one behind the camera. I never liked the way I looked, never felt comfortable in my own skin.

My mom always said I wasn’t pretty. Once I got really upset and argued with her. She said it was superstition—supposedly, if you keep saying your daughter is ugly, she’ll get prettier. She was even proud, thinking I was pretty thanks to her “well-intentioned efforts.”

It’s the kind of backwards logic only a mom could come up with. She’d pinch my cheeks and say, “You’re not pretty yet, but you will be. Trust me.” I never did.

Utterly ridiculous.

Whether I got prettier or not, I don’t know. I only know that even if so many people liked me for my looks, deep down I still had an ingrained inferiority complex.