Chapter 23

• Time dragged and flew by at the same time for Rowen.
• The first few days felt like the longest. Like moving in a dreamlike state, everything was slow, heavy, and slightly muted. He’d carried out his classes on autopilot, all the while trying to ignore the vacant chair by the window. His eyes always seemed to be drawn to it like a magnet, no matter how many times he looked away. It screamed for his attention, and the empty space continued to mock him.
• The university had only a little over eight hundred students, and yet it began to feel like she had never existed. Over the next few weeks he’d only run into her a handful of times, and even then she moved too fast, too far away for him to watch her. For a time he’d wondered how she was doing, how she must be coping with everything… and before long he stopped thinking about her entirely.