Can't Resist Chemistry: A Friends to Lovers College Romance Novella by Bethany Hunt

Author:Bethany Hunt [Hunt, Bethany]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

I spend the holiday break recovering from the pneumonia. It’s good to be home. I don’t text Benjamin, and I don’t hear from him either. It’s quiet.

By the time I’m back on campus for the new semester, I’m mostly back to my usual state of health. It feels like my breath still comes too short sometimes, but other than that things are back to normal. Or at least, back to how they were before Benjamin came in and started infiltrating every aspect of my life.

It’s his sudden absence that makes me realize it. He’s not sliding into the chair opposite mine at our usual desk in the library. He’s not waiting outside my biology class so that we can walk to the lab together. He’s not sneaking up behind me in the cafeteria with an extra orange on his tray for me.

In the lab, the silence between us is stiff in a way it wasn’t even in the beginning. Benjamin’s usual exuberance is tightly packed away when he’s around me.

I shouldn’t feel like there’s something missing.

I shouldn’t feel like I’m missing him.

But I do.

I miss his laugh, his voice, his presence next to me. I miss the way he drew me out of my shelf slowly, patiently, without my even realizing he was doing it. I missed his quick wit, his kindness, and the way we talked so easily, tossing ideas and jokes back and forth. I trusted him to look over my essays and critique my lab reports and quiz me before exams; now, I find that I’m reaching for my phone to text him a clarifying question about our homework, and then realizing that I shouldn’t.

There’s a pang of loss every time I remember that we’re not speaking.

I miss the way he made me feel like myself, free of any expectations.

But I’m still myself, as I was before I met him. I didn’t need him then, and I don’t need him now. I’m just as self-sufficient and self-contained as I always was.

I try to keep my mind off of it.

And I’m busy again with school and stress and the clenched sick-feeling waiting to hear back from the medical schools I’d applied to. I limit myself to only checking my email once every hour. I still haven’t heard anything back. I know it’s still early, but the anxiety is enough to distract me from the silence.

Benjamin seems to catch my anxiety, glancing over at me sometimes when I’m bouncing my leg too much or staring too fixedly at my empty email inbox. He doesn’t say anything though, and the silence between us continues.

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