A year had passed, and with it, so had the sharpness of Cameron's longing. What once felt like a knife lodged into her ribs had dulled into something unremarkable—a faded scar, an old wound that no longer bled but remained as a reminder of what once was.
Jasmine's name was just another word now. It held no weight, no secret ache, no lingering pull in the back of her mind. If it came up in conversation, she would pretend not to hear it. If she saw it in text, her eyes would skim past it as if it were insignificant, a meaningless arrangement of letters. There was no hatred, no bitterness. Just emptiness.
And wasn't that a kind of relief?
Cameron had spent the past year purging herself of whatever love, obsession, or illusion she had once felt. She had drowned it in distractions—long shifts at work, blank evenings on the couch, drinking enough to sleep through the night without dreaming. Her phone became less of a tether and more of a background hum. There were no messages to wait for anymore. No expectations. Just silence. And silence, she had learned, could be shaped into something livable.
She decided, consciously, methodically, that if she couldn't have what she wanted, then she wouldn't want at all.
In its place, there was Rosalie.
Rosalie had slipped into Cameron's life without much fanfare, but that was what made it easy. She was a year older, with dark skin and dyed hair that changed colors every few weeks—pink when they met, then green, then blue, now a deep purple. She had a presence that didn't demand attention but effortlessly occupied space. She didn't talk too much or too little, didn't pry into things Cameron didn't want to share, and didn't seem to care whether Cameron was whole or broken.
She just was. And Cameron appreciated that.
They met at a small reading event in a cramped bookstore downtown. Cameron had only gone because a coworker canceled and gave her the ticket. Rosalie had been seated beside her, quietly marking up a notebook with doodles and quotes as the poet read. Their first conversation was about how bad the wine was. Their second was about music. Their third lasted three hours.
But even then, Cameron hadn't let herself feel pulled in. Not really. She liked Rosalie's calm, liked the way she didn't expect anything of her. There was no tug in the chest, no wild heartbeat. No danger. And that felt safe.
She wasn't in love. Cameron knew that. Rosalie wasn't some grand, all-consuming fire that made her rethink her entire existence. She was just… something to hold onto. Something stable. Something that made the nights a little quieter and the mornings a little less dreadful. And for now, that was enough.
Settling wasn't such a terrible thing, she told herself. There was peace in predictability.
Their relationship, if it could even be called that, was slow and unhurried. Rosalie didn't push for labels or grand gestures. She didn't ask for stories Cameron wasn't willing to tell. They spent time together, sometimes going out, sometimes just lying in bed listening to the hum of the city outside Cameron's apartment window. They moved around each other like people who had learned not to disturb still water.
Cameron liked that.
Sometimes, on Saturdays, Rosalie would make breakfast without asking, wearing one of Cameron's sweatshirts and humming some soft indie melody under her breath. Other times, she'd disappear for two or three days, not out of disinterest but because she respected Cameron's space. Her own apartment was only a few bus stops away, and they lived in that distance like it was part of the agreement—closeness, but never too close.
"You think too much," Rosalie had said once, running her fingers absentmindedly through Cameron's hair as they lay in bed one afternoon. "It's exhausting watching you do it."
Cameron had only hummed in response, not bothering to argue. She didn't want to explain that thinking too much was the only thing she had left. If she stopped, even for a moment, she was afraid she'd slip into something worse.
Rosalie didn't ask her to explain. She didn't fill silence with unnecessary words. She just stayed there, fingers trailing lightly through Cameron's hair, like she understood that sometimes, holding someone didn't mean holding all of them.
And that, somehow, made it easier to stay.
Rosalie was good at distracting her. She made Cameron laugh sometimes—real laughter, not the kind you fake to prove you're fine. She pulled her into spontaneous plans: a museum exhibit with weird taxidermy art, a lakeside picnic where they forgot to bring utensils, a karaoke night Cameron refused to sing at but still ended up tipsy and breathless on the sidewalk after. There were moments, scattered and small, where life didn't feel so heavy.
She wasn't happy.
But she wasn't drowning either.
And maybe that counted for something.
Cameron told herself that if Jasmine were to reappear, she wouldn't care. That if she ever saw her again, she'd feel nothing. No spark, no ache, no yearning.
She had finally killed that part of herself.
At least, that's what she wanted to believe.
And on most days, she almost did.