The Space in Between

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None of them meant to hurt each other.

That's the part people forget about slow-burning disasters, they don't begin with betrayal. They begin with kindness. With glances held a second too long. With private jokes that start feeling more like confessions. With one moment that could have meant nothing, and instead, meant everything.

They were four people who once shared everything: the same group chat, the same half-formed dreams, the same late nights on rooftops and in lecture halls, talking about who they might become.

And then the lines blurred.
Someone kissed someone they shouldn't have.
Someone stayed silent when it mattered most.
Someone joked instead of admitting what they felt.
And someone kept everyone else emotionally afloat while quietly sinking.

There was no fight. No scandal.
Just a slow drift into emotional ambiguity, a friendship that eroded in glances, apologies, and timing that never aligned.

Now, years later, they've been asked to build an art exhibit together. The theme? Memory.

It's poetic, in a cruel way.

They're supposed to create something honest while still pretending they've moved on.
But the truth is still there, buried beneath words unsaid, under a kiss that shouldn't have happened, inside jokes that now sting, and a friendship that still aches.

This isn't a love story.
This is what came after.

This is the space in between.