Chapter 6 – Between Pages and Promises

College didn't look like the brochures.

Sure, the quad was picture-perfect in the golden morning light, and the dorms smelled faintly of pine-scented cleaner. But the rest? Chaos. Orientation pamphlets, awkward icebreakers, RA speeches with too much fake cheer. Maya wandered through it all like she was watching a movie play out that she wasn't quite cast in.

Her roommate, Zoey, was a fashion major with purple streaks in her hair and an obsession with crime podcasts. They clicked immediately.

"So you've got a long-distance guy?" Zoey asked one night as they unpacked.

Maya glanced at the framed photo of her and Liam she'd put on her desk. They were both laughing in it—genuine, unfiltered joy.

"Yeah. I guess I do."

"You guys seem… solid," Zoey said.

Maya smiled, but there was a flicker of doubt in her chest. Not because she didn't believe in them, but because this was the part no one prepared her for—the in-between. The not-knowing. The space between porch swings and phone calls.

They talked almost every night.

Some conversations were deep—what scared them, what they missed. Others were silly—ranking cereal brands, debating whether pineapple belonged on pizza. (Liam said absolutely not. Maya insisted it was elite.)

But it wasn't the same as being beside him.

One night, she sat cross-legged on her bed, her laptop open in front of her while they FaceTimed.

Liam was lying on his couch, hoodie pulled over his head, looking sleepy and soft. "So what's the verdict on the sociology professor?"

Maya groaned. "She has the voice of a lullaby and the pacing of a snail. I'm not surviving midterms."

"I'll send brain snacks."

"I accept this offering."

He smiled. Then his voice softened. "You okay, May?"

She hesitated. "I think I'm still finding my footing."

"That's normal."

"Yeah, but I thought I'd feel… more like myself."

Liam was quiet for a second. Then he said, "Even when you don't, I still see you."

Her throat tightened. "You're gonna make me cry, and I already did mascara today."

"Can't mess with the lashes."

They laughed, and for a moment, the screen between them felt invisible.

Letters still arrived every week.

Liam had started calling them "Sunday Scribbles," handwritten on notebook paper and folded into neat little squares. Some were funny—rants about his boss at the auto shop, doodles of imaginary inventions. Others were softer—memories he'd never told her about, dreams he was scared to say aloud.

Maya kept every single one in a shoebox beneath her bed.

One Sunday, the letter was different.

It started with:

"I'm proud of you. I know we're in two different worlds right now, but somehow it still feels like you're right here. I don't know what that means yet—what we're becoming or how this will look in a year—but I'm not afraid anymore. And maybe that's what love is. Not promises we can't control. But showing up, even when it's hard. Even when it hurts."

Maya read it three times.

Then she wrote back.

"I miss your orange juice rants. I miss porch swings and lightning storms. But I'm also discovering things about myself—parts that only came out when you reminded me how to look. We're not perfect. But we're real. And that's enough for me right now."

One night, walking back from the library under a sky scattered with stars, Zoey looped her arm through Maya's.

"You're glowing, girl. Either you got an A on that paper or love is doing its thing."

Maya laughed. "Maybe both."

But even as she said it, she wondered—could love stretch this far?

Was this the kind of beginning that could last?

She didn't know yet.

But she was willing to find out.