***
Tim found her outside the lecture hall, leaning against the stone wall with her bag slung loosely over one shoulder, staring at her phone without really seeing it.
"Hey Thalma, it's been Centuries, I have been calling but you aren't taking my calls. Are you good ?" Tim asked in a low and understandable tone
" Oh Tim, you're here. I'm sorry! It's been a hell of ride lately and I'm trying lol my possible best to put things in place" explained Thalma
"I can imagine, Sorry about the tough times. You look like you've been somewhere else all morning," he said, falling into step beside her.
She glanced up, surprised, but not startled. "Was it that obvious?"
"To me," he replied with a small smile.
They walked in silence for a few seconds, the sound of students passing around them filling the gaps. Tim never rushed her. That was one of the things she hadn't learned how to name yet but felt.
"My mum called," she said finally. "She wants me to come to Morocco for the holidays."
"That's… far," Tim said gently.
She nodded. "So is everything else."
He didn't ask what she meant. Instead, he pointed toward the café across the quad. "Coffee?"
She hesitated. Not because she didn't want to but because she was tired of choosing things.
"Okay," she said.
Inside, the warmth wrapped around them. Tim ordered for both of them without asking—remembering, somehow, that she preferred oat milk and no sugar. When they sat down, he watched her the way someone watches a fragile thing without trying to fix it.
"Are you going?" he asked quietly.
"I don't know," Thalma said. "Part of me wants to. Part of me feels like leaving means admitting something's wrong."
"And staying?" he asked.
She looked at him then. Really looked.
"Staying feels like pretending I'm fine."
Tim nodded once. "Then maybe it's not about running or staying. Maybe it's about choosing what hurts less."
The words settled between them, not advice, not pressure. Just truth.
She wrapped her hands around her cup, letting the heat ground her. "You're always like this," she said.
"Like what?" he asked with a smile
"Present."
He smiled, softer this time. "Someone has to be."
For the first time all day, Thalma felt her chest loosen just a little. Not healed. But held.
They stepped out of the café together, the late afternoon air cool against Thalma's skin. Tim adjusted his jacket as they walked, hands tucked into his pockets, his pace unhurried. For a moment, she allowed herself to stay inside that softness, the normalcy of it, the way nothing demanded too much from her.
And then she felt it. That tightening in her chest.
That familiar, uninvited awareness. She slowed.
Tim noticed immediately. "You okay?"
Thalma nodded too quickly. "Yeah. I just—"
She stopped walking altogether.
Across the courtyard, near the steps leading into one of the older buildings, Damon stood with Lewis and Trevor. Rodney leaned against the rail, laughing loudly at something Lewis had said. They looked easy. Familiar. Like a memory that hadn't learned how to fade.
Damon's laughter cut off abruptly. Their eyes met. Just for a second. That was all it took.
The world seemed to tilt, not dramatically, not loudly, but enough for Thalma to feel unsteady. Damon hadn't changed much. Same tall frame. Same careless confidence in the way he stood. But there was something different in his eyes now. Something restrained.
He hadn't expected to see her.
Neither had she. Tim followed her gaze, then looked back at her. He didn't ask. He didn't need to. "Do you want to go another way?" he offered quietly.Thalma swallowed.
Damon took a step forward without
thinking, then stopped himself. His jaw tightened. Lewis said something beside him, low and amused, but Damon didn't respond.
For a brief, suspended moment, it felt like the past and present were standing too close to each other.
Thalma broke eye contact first.
"Yes," she said softly to Tim. "Please." They turned away.
Her heart pounded harder with every step, her breath shallow, her thoughts loud and disorganized. She hated how easily her body remembered him. Hated how quickly the calm Tim had given her slipped through her fingers.
Behind her, Damon watched her leave.
"Don't," Trevor muttered under his breath.
Damon exhaled sharply, raking a hand through his hair. "I wasn't going to."
But his eyes followed her anyway until she disappeared into the crowd.
They walked in silence for a while.
"I'm sorry," Thalma said suddenly. Tim stopped. "For what?"
"For bringing you into… whatever that was."
Tim studied her face. "You didn't bring me into anything. You were already there."
She looked down. "It's complicated."
"I figured," he said gently. "I don't need details. Just honesty."
She nodded. "I'm trying."
"That's enough," he replied.
They reached the path where they usually parted ways. Thalma hesitated, her fingers curling around the strap of her bag.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" Tim asked.
"Yes," she said. "I think I'd like that."
He smiled "please don't ignore me anymore, miss" .
She stood there still feeling guilty of her actions. Only then did the weight return.
***
The morning arrived without ceremony.
Grey light filtered through Thalma's curtains, thin and undecided, much like her mood. She lay awake long before her alarm went off, staring at the ceiling, replaying fragments of yesterday she hadn't given permission to stay.
Damon's eyes. Tim's voice. Her mother's invitation. She rose slowly, showered, dressed with care not because she felt good, but because she needed to feel present.
When she stepped outside, Oxford moved around her in its usual rhythm: bicycles cutting past, students laughing too loudly, bells echoing faintly in the distance and life went on.
Tim was already there when she reached the small park near campus, the one with the low stone wall and the wide oak tree at its center. He stood with his hands in his coat pockets, watching the morning settle.
"You're early," she said.
"So are you," he replied, smiling.
They walked side by side, unhurried. No need to fill the air. With Tim, silence never felt like abandonment, it felt like permission.
"I thought about what you said yesterday," she began.
"That staying feels like pretending?" he asked.
She nodded. "And that leaving might hurt less."
"And?" he prompted, careful not to push.
"I don't know yet," she admitted. "But I think I need to move. Even if I don't know where I'm landing."
Tim considered that. "Movement doesn't have to be permanent," he said. "Sometimes it's just a pause."
She glanced at him. "You're very good at this."
"At what?"
"Not making things heavier."
He shrugged. "I learned the hard way that people already carry enough."
They reached the stone wall and sat. Thalma pulled out her diary without thinking, resting it on her lap.
"You write everywhere," Tim observed.
"It's the only place I don't lie," she said.
He nodded, eyes forward. "You don't have to share."
"I know."
But she opened it anyway.
***
Later, alone in her apartment, Thalma sat at her desk with the window cracked open. The city hummed faintly below. Her phone lay beside her diary, Evelyn's last message still unread.
She picked up her pen.
"Dear Diary,
I keep waiting for the moment when life feels like mine. Maybe it won't arrive. Maybe you choose it…"
Her hand trembled slightly as she reached for her phone. She typed slowly.
"Hi Mum. I'll come for the holidays."
She stared at the message for a long moment, eventually sending it.
The sound it made was small. But the shift inside her wasn't.
Thalma leaned back, exhaling, unsure whether she felt relief or fear or something that lived in between. She closed her diary.
Somewhere in the city, Damon existed.
Somewhere else, Tim waited without asking.
And somewhere beyond that, a sunlit place was opening its doors to her again. For the first time in a long while, Thalma wasn't just surviving the night. She was choosing what came next.
***
Damon sat on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees, staring at the floor like it might offer answers.
The house was quiet now. Too quiet. Lewis and the others had left hours ago, laughter trailing behind them like smoke. Olivia had gone too after a kiss on his cheek that felt practiced, after asking if he was sure he didn't want her to stay.
He'd said yes. He always said yes.
His phone buzzed. Came Olivia: "I got home safe"
He read the message once. Then again. He didn't reply. Instead, his thumb drifted against his will to another name. One he hadn't typed in months. One he pretended not to remember by heart (Thalma)
He didn't open the chat. Didn't scroll. Didn't reread old conversations he'd sworn he deleted but never truly did.
Seeing her today had done something to him. Not loudly. Not violently. Just enough to reopen a place he'd boarded up and convinced himself was gone.
She looked different. Quieter. Stronger in a way that scared him. And she had been walking away from him.
Damon leaned back against the mattress and shut his eyes. He told himself it was over. That some stories didn't get second chances. That wanting something didn't mean you deserved it.
But wanting was a stubborn thing.
And that night, alone in the dark, Damon finally admitted what he had been hiding from everyone including himself: Moving on had only ever been a performance.
***
The night was gentle when Thalma began to pack. Not rushed. Not dramatic. Just deliberate.
Her suitcase lay open on the bed, clothes folded neatly, colors chosen carefully. She moved slowly, as if speed might make the decision feel too real.
She packed essentials first. Then memories crept in. An old scarf from her mother.
A book her father once mailed her with a note tucked inside. Photos she hadn't looked at in years.She paused when she reached her diary.
It sat on the desk where she always left it…waiting. Thalma picked it up and opened it to a blank page.
"Dear Diary,
I'm scared that leaving will hurt. I'm more scared that staying will break me…"
She stopped there. No explanations. No poetry. Just the truth. She placed the diary carefully into her bag, alongside her pen and headset, and zipped the suitcase halfway leaving it unfinished, like everything else.
At the window, she looked out at the city one last time for the night. Oxford glowed softly, unaware of how much it had held her together without trying. Her phone lit up again.
This time, it wasn't her mother. It was Tim.
"Let me know when you get there. I'll be here."
She didn't reply immediately. She smiled…small, uncertain, real.
As Thalma turned off the light and lay down beside her packed bag, one thought settled gently into her chest: Some journeys don't promise healing. They only promise movement.
And for now, that was enough.
She laid down still humming her favourite songs one after the other. Remembering the lyrics in her imaginary eyes made it more satisfying…
Now, she prepares herself for her next movement.
To be continued....