Cameron felt it before she could fully process it. A shift—not dramatic, not obvious, but persistent. Subtle at first. Like the temperature in a room dropping one degree at a time until suddenly you're shivering and don't know when it started.
Jasmine was pulling away.
It began with little things. The casual text replies that used to have hearts and winks now came stripped bare—just answers, short and functional. Her voice, once warm and teasing, took on a cooler, flatter edge. And the physical closeness Cameron had come to rely on—the brushing of shoulders, the fingertips trailing down her arm, the sleepy, whispered affection—disappeared almost overnight.
Cameron told herself it was fine. Temporary. People had moods. Maybe Jasmine was tired. Work had been intense lately. She chalked it up to stress, to exhaustion. Nothing a little space and time couldn't fix.
So she threw herself deeper into planning the surprise trip. She poured over reviews, double-checked itineraries, made mock packing lists Jasmine didn't even know about. She imagined the way Jasmine would light up when she saw it all—the skyline, the wine, the escape.
That had to be it, right?
A lull before the magic.
They just needed something beautiful to pull them out of the gray.
But then came the excuses.
"Hey," Cameron asked one evening as they sat in silence, the TV humming faintly in the background. "You wanna go on a date soon? Just us?"
Jasmine didn't even look up from her phone. "Can't. Busy."
Just that. No smile. No explanation. No softness.
Busy.
The word settled in Cameron's stomach like a stone. It was Jasmine's new favorite answer. Cameron started hearing it more often, like a mantra meant to keep her at arm's length. Busy with work. Busy with errands. Busy with nothing she'd name.
And with every excuse, the space between them grew.
The cold shoulder turned to avoidance. Avoidance turned to absence. And soon, Cameron felt like she was reaching into an empty room, waiting for someone who no longer intended to arrive.
She tried harder. She asked gently if everything was okay. She offered to make dinner, suggested low-key nights in, and tried to wrap her care around Jasmine like armor. But nothing stuck. Every kind gesture seemed to slip right off her.
Then, without warning, Jasmine flipped the script.
"You're the one who's been acting differently," she said one night, arms crossed, her face perfectly unreadable.
Cameron blinked. "What?"
They were sitting on opposite ends of the couch. The room was too quiet. Cameron could hear the buzz of her own confusion. She hadn't seen this coming. Not at all.
Jasmine let out a humorless laugh. "I feel like I barely even see you anymore."
Cameron opened her mouth, but no words came.
What?
She had been doing everything. Planning the trip. Holding space. Giving softness, even when it wasn't returned. And now… this?
"Jasmine, I—"
"I just don't get it," Jasmine interrupted, shaking her head like she was tired of trying to decipher something that didn't make sense. "You pull away and then act confused when I notice?"
Cameron stared at her, stomach turning. Her mind was scrambling for logic, but everything felt upside-down. Had she been distant? Had she pulled away and not noticed? No—she was planning a goddamn international trip for them. She was budgeting, checking weather forecasts, arranging a perfect itinerary. She was invested.
But now she felt like a child being scolded for coloring outside the lines—lines she hadn't known were there in the first place.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said finally, voice smaller than she meant it to be.
Jasmine sighed and stood, already halfway across the room. "I'm going."
"Going where?" Cameron asked, barely louder than a breath.
But Jasmine didn't answer. She grabbed her bag from the hook near the door and let herself out with a soft, deliberate click. No slam. No dramatic exit. Just… gone.
And just like that, Cameron was alone again.
She sat there for a long time, staring at the door as if it might open back up. As if Jasmine might come back and say she didn't mean it, that she was just tired or frustrated, that this was just another one of those moments people worked through.
But the door stayed shut.
The room felt colder now, somehow too big for her body. The silence wasn't peaceful—it was punishing. Every tick of the clock was a reminder that something had cracked, and this time, she wasn't sure how to glue it back together.
Cameron lowered her face into her hands. The trip felt like a joke now, an echo of her own delusion. A gift for someone who didn't seem to want her anymore.
She'd thought they were solid. She'd believed they were through the storm. That Jasmine's confessions, their late-night promises, the quiet moments of mutual vulnerability had meant something.
But maybe Jasmine had never fully come back.
Maybe she had only leaned in long enough to keep Cameron tethered.
And now that Cameron had tied herself to this vision—this idea of what they could be—Jasmine was slowly, methodically dismantling it.
The cruelest part wasn't the fight.
It was the feeling that the exit had started long before Jasmine stood up from that couch.