Chapter 13 – Under the Flame Tree
Pinky Promise
Theo hears she’s back before sunset—not from her, not from a message waiting on his phone, but from a neighbor watering plants across the street. It’s said casually.
“Sofia arrived this morning.”
The way ordinary updates are delivered in a neighborhood that has watched them grow up.
But it doesn’t land casually at all.
The words strike something immediate in him. He doesn’t tell himself to wait. He doesn’t think about whether it’s too soon, whether she might be tired from travel, whether he should give her space. He changes his shirt, runs a hand quickly through his hair, and is out the door before the sky fully shifts into evening.
His heart moves faster than his steps.
Her gate is half-open when he arrives. The house lights glow warmly against the softening day, familiar and unchanged. For a moment he stands there, steadying himself, suddenly aware of how long a semester can feel when someone important is missing from it.
He knocks.
Her mother answers, surprise brightening her face. “Theo? You’re early.”
“I heard she’s back,” he says, unable to hide the relief threading through his voice. “Is she here?”
“She got back this morning,” her mother confirms, stepping aside slightly as if he might already be expected. Then she pauses. “But she went out.”
His smile falters just a fraction. “Out?”
“She didn’t say where. Just that she’d be back before dark.”
That unsettles him more than he expects. Sofia always says where she’s going. It’s not dramatic, not something she announces with ceremony, just a quiet consistency. A habit formed over years.
He nods anyway, polite. “Ah. Okay. I’ll just… catch her later.”
He steps back through the gate, the metal clicking softly behind him. The sky has softened into late afternoon gold, stretching long shadows across the street. For a moment he stands there, phone in hand, considering a message.
Are you at the park?
Are you home yet?
I’m outside.
But something in him resists. If she didn’t say where she was going, maybe she wanted quiet. Maybe she needed a moment before seeing anyone.
His feet start moving before the thought fully forms.
The small neighborhood park isn’t far. The route is muscle memory—the cracked sidewalk with weeds pushing through, the low fence with peeling paint that he and Sofia once joked about fixing and never did.
The world feels suspended in that in-between hour.
Not quite day. Not yet night.
And then he sees it.
The flame tree.
The bench beneath it.
Their bench.
It comes into view slowly, framed by drifting red petals scattered like quiet confessions across the grass.
She’s there.
Seated upright but not rigid, hands resting loosely in her lap. She looks as if she has been there for some time—not restless, not waiting, just existing in the space. Fallen petals gather near her shoes. The light catches in her hair, softening her outline against the open park behind her.
For a moment, he just stands there.
She looks smaller somehow. Not physically but contained. Held inward.
He exhales, a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding since he left her house.
“Sofia.”
She turns at the sound of her name. The surprise on her face is genuine—unguarded—before recognition settles in. Then warmth follows. A smile blooms slowly, not rushed, not forced, and it changes her entire expression.
“Theo?”
There’s something almost disbelieving in the way she says it, like she hadn’t expected him to appear so quickly, so physically real.
He approaches, unable to stop the grin spreading across his face.
“I went to your house. They said you disappeared without telling anyone where you were going.”
A faint, almost guilty curve touches her lips. “I didn’t disappear.”
“You kind of did.”
She lets out a soft breath that might be a laugh. “I just… needed air.”
He studies her for a second—not critically, not suspiciously—just carefully. As if measuring the distance between the girl who left for the semester and the one sitting in front of him now.
Then he sits beside her, close enough that their shoulders nearly touch. The bench creaks under the shared weight, the sound familiar and grounding. Above them, the flame tree shifts gently in the breeze, scattering another red petal that lands near her hand.
For a moment there is only quiet—the soft rustle of leaves, the distant echo of children playing somewhere deeper in the park.
It is the same place they have returned to for years.
But today something in him is lighter.
“I can’t believe you’re actually back,” he says, the words tumbling out before he can slow them. “This semester felt longer than usual.”
Sofia smiles gently. “It was only a few months.”
“Yeah, but still.” He leans back slightly. “A lot happened.”
Her expression softens with quiet encouragement. “Like what?”
That is all the invitation he needs.
He begins with the usual things—classes that were harder than expected, a professor who seemed to believe sleep was optional, Marco nearly failing a group presentation because he forgot the deadline entirely. The stories come easily, carried by the comfort of the bench, by the simple fact that she is here to hear them.
Sofia listens the way she always has. Slightly turned toward him. Eyes attentive. A small smile appearing at the right moments.
“So then Marco tries to improvise the entire presentation,” Theo continues, laughing lightly. “And somehow he makes it sound like it was part of the plan the whole time.”
“Did the professor believe him?” Sofia asks.
“Not even a little.”
She laughs softly, and the sound lifts something warm in his chest.
Encouraged, he keeps going.
He talks about the campus, the cafeteria food that somehow tastes worse every week, the long walks between buildings that slowly became routine. His hands move as he speaks, describing small details, letting the semester unwind into pieces between them.
Eventually, the stories reach something newer.
“There’s someone in my economics class,” he says casually. “Her name’s Brigette.”
Sofia nods slightly, encouraging him to continue.
“She sits a couple rows behind me. At first we only talked because of assignments… but turns out she actually understands the lectures.”
Sofia smiles. “That helps.”
He nods, leaning forward a little without noticing.
“We started studying together. It just kind of… happened.”
He pauses briefly, searching for the right way to explain it.
“It’s easy with her. You know when you meet someone and the conversation just… works?”
Sofia nods again. “That’s good.”
But as he continues, something begins to tug at the edge of his attention.
At first, it’s subtle.
She is still smiling. Still listening.
Yet something about her feels slightly… distant.
He notices the way her smile lingers a fraction too long, as if she is making sure it stays in place. The way her gaze drifts toward the open park between sentences before returning to him. Her fingers trace the edge of the bench, repeating the same small movement.
None of it is dramatic.
But it is different.
He slows. The energy that carried his stories begins to fade, like a conversation that suddenly no longer feels important.
The words fall away.
The quiet that settles between them is gentle, but unmistakable.
Theo turns toward her fully.
“Sofia.”
She looks back immediately. “Yes?”
He studies her for a moment.
“You’re not really here right now,” he says.
Her smile falters, then steadies. “I am.”
He shakes his head slightly. “You’re trying to be.”
Something in her expression softens—not in relief, not exactly—but in recognition.
He leans forward, attention narrowing completely.
“Hey,” he says gently. “What’s wrong?”
Because the moment he senses something is wrong with Sofia, the rest of the world automatically becomes background noise.
Sofia doesn’t answer right away.
For a moment, it looks like she might brush it off—return to the same easy rhythm they’ve always had. Her smile appears again, automatic.
“I’m fine,” she says.
Theo doesn’t push. He simply watches her, quiet and patient.
The silence between them isn’t heavy.
It just waits.
Sofia exhales slowly, her gaze drifting past him toward the open park.
“You remember the story I told you last time about Daniel,” she says.
Theo nods immediately.
A small pause.
“We broke up.”
The words land softly, but their weight is clear.
Theo shifts slightly, his attention sharpening. “When?”
“A little after midterms.”
She explains it slowly—how she tried to hold things together, how distance didn’t feel impossible at first. Different campuses, different schedules, different lives.
But somewhere along the way, she realized she was the only one still trying.
“I kept telling myself it was just the adjustment,” she says. “But it never really went back.”
Theo listens without interrupting.
“He was always busy. Always with his new friends. It started to feel like I was just… fitting into whatever time he had left.”
She gives a small shrug. “So I ended it.”
The logic is clear. Steady.
But Theo can still see something lingering.
“There’s more,” he says gently.
She hesitates, then nods.
“A few weeks after… I saw pictures from his campus.”
Theo waits.
“There was this girl. She was always in the background before.”
Her gaze lowers slightly.
“But in the new photos… she wasn’t in the background anymore.”
Theo doesn’t need more than that.
“They look close now,” she finishes quietly.
The space between them holds that truth.
“I thought I was okay with it,” Sofia says after a moment. “At first, it just felt like something that ended.”
She inhales slowly.
“But seeing that… it felt different.”
Her voice remains steady.
“Before, it was just a crack. Now it actually broke.”
Theo doesn’t rush to fill the silence.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says eventually.
“I know.”
And she does.
“That’s the frustrating part,” she adds softly.
The light around them continues to soften, slipping from gold into the first hints of dusk. The park grows quieter, the world narrowing gently around the bench.
“I thought I understood it,” she says. “But I wasn’t prepared for how fast everything moves on.”
Theo turns toward her.
“You’ll move on too.”
She gives a small, tired smile. “I know.”
And she will.
The pain isn’t overwhelming. Just present.
He leans back slightly.
“You know,” he says after a moment, “Daniel was always terrible at group projects.”
Sofia blinks caught off guard—then lets out a soft laugh.
Theo shrugged. “Remember senior year? The history presentation?”
A faint laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
“He didn’t finish his slides.”
“He didn’t even start them.”
“You ended up doing half of it the night before.”
“Correction,” Theo said, raising a finger. “I did most of it the night before.”
Her laugh is quieter this time—but real.
The tension in her shoulders eases, just a little.
Theo doesn’t push further. He lets the conversation drift—old memories, shared stories, familiar ground.
At some point during the quiet flow of conversation, Theo realizes he has let the rest of his stories fall away.
Brigette crosses his mind briefly—the easy rhythm of their conversations, the way the semester had unfolded. He had already mentioned her, just enough.
Under different circumstances, he would have said more.
But now doesn’t feel like the right moment.
Not tonight.
The sky deepens into warm shades of orange and violet, the last of the sunlight thinning behind the rooftops. One by one, the park lights flicker on, casting soft halos along the path.
Neither of them rushes to leave.
Sofia leans back slightly, watching the clouds shift overhead. The heaviness hasn’t disappeared—but it no longer presses as sharply.
Theo sits beside her in quiet ease.
This is how it has always been.
Eventually, Sofia stands, brushing petals from her skirt.
“I should head back,” she says. “Before my mom starts worrying.”
Theo stands too. “Yeah.”
They walk toward the exit together, their steps falling naturally into the same rhythm they’ve always known.
Nothing about the evening has changed what happened.
But she isn’t carrying it alone anymore.
つづく