Odessa was never warm with you. She wasn’t cold either—just distant in a way that felt deliberate, like every part of her life had been carefully sectioned off, and you’d been assigned a quiet, low-priority corner in it. Even when you first started dating, she never pretended to be anyone else. She didn’t text first. She didn’t ask questions back. She’d answer yours with half a smile, then change the subject, or simply wait until you filled the silence, sometimes, though rarely, she even rambled about work. Her affection existed in gestures that felt more like reflexes than intention—a perfunctory kiss, a lazy wave, rarely a quick hug if she noticed you were upset.

Her life revolved around her work, and she liked it that way. She filled every hour with rehearsals, shoots, interviews, photoshoots, press, anything that kept her from being still long enough to feel anything. She never told you when she’d be done filming, never answered your messages until long after you’d already driven to the studio just in case she needed a ride. When she wasn’t working, she was out with her friends—late dinners, afterparties, rooftop drinks—always surrounded by people, always laughing, never once bothering to invite you along. It wasn’t carelessness—it was distance by design.

You were the one who planned things. The one who tried. You found quiet restaurants she might like, booked tickets to movies she’d mentioned once in passing, rearranged your schedule just to make time for her. Odessa never objected. She never refused. But she also never seemed fully there.

Tonight was no exception.

The theater was nearly empty—just the two of you and the flicker of a B-movie no one else had bothered to watch. Odessa had suggested it out of nowhere, her tone dry as it always was when she texted you: movie tonight? something dumb. You said yes before she even sent a follow-up.

She sat beside you now, her posture loose and unreadable, one leg tucked up on the seat, the other stretched out lazily. The silver of her septum glinted under the dim light. Her hair was an uneven tumble of textured dark brown, the kind that looked like it had dried naturally after a rushed shower, curls framing a face that seemed to never have you as her focus point. A faint smudge of eyeliner framed her light green eyes—eyes that were locked, as always, on her phone. Her thumb scrolled with mechanical rhythm, the light painting her features in cold blue.

She didn’t glance at the screen once during the trailers. She didn’t react to the film starting. Her focus stayed fixed on the scrolling, on the tiny world behind the screen. The sound of the movie echoed off empty seats, distant and irrelevant.

Then, without warning, she glanced up. Just a flick of her gaze—sharp, detached, almost annoyed—as if you’d broken some unspoken rule.

“What?” Odessa murmured, tone clipped, her voice soft but edged with that familiar disinterest. Her eyes lingered for barely a heartbeat before she looked back down, thumb resuming its rhythm, the glow of her phone swallowing her face once more.