The Fray Theory: Resonance Read Online Free

in
the armchair facing the fireplace. In the same seat she always took whenever she and Dylan were lucky enough
to grab this corner spot.
    It was always
such a treat. So warm and cozy.
    With their books
sprawled in front of them, they’d sit here for hours on end, sipping their drinks
at a glacial pace while chatting about nothing.
    And that was by
far the most precious thing this place gave them.
    Time .
    Neve nestles
herself in the cushy comfort of her chair, reminiscing about the obnoxious
stories they dreamt up for their fellow caffeine devotees. Dylan would pick
someone at random and come up with an elaborate conspiracy theory. And Neve could
never resist a forbidden love affair between the unlikeliest pair in the café.
    But today, their favorite
setting is nothing more than a refuge for the lonesome.
    Neve reaches into
her purse and pulls out her old diary. The one she reads more often than she
cares to admit. The one she has long stopped writing in.
    Ever since Dylan
disappeared without a trace, her collection of memories slowly morphed into a
safe. A secure asylum where she locked away her entangled thoughts and unruly
emotions.
    It’s easy for Elliot
to dismiss Dylan’s text.
    With each passing
moment, Neve’s decision to not respond is feeling more and more like a tragedy
in the making. So with hopes of stumbling upon some hidden wisdom, she runs her
nail along the edge of her diary and opens it to a random page:
     
    And sometime next week, I will run into you at a café. And I
will hate myself for not having bothered with makeup that day. And you will
kick yourself for not taking the time to shave, even though you had plenty of
time.
    We will both make and break unintentional eye-contact, trying
desperately to conceal our inner thoughts.
    Mine, of missing you.
    Yours, of wanting me.
    You will strike an overzealous conversation with the barista,
pretending to not have seen me at all.
    And I’ll burn a hole in the chalkboard menu with my
concentration, then pretend to text someone who cares about me.
    We will each put on an act of just how well we’re doing.
    Standing feet away, yet miles apart.
    And then, we will strategically part ways to avoid
confrontation, and once home, sink into the nook of our comfort zones, feeling lonely,
rejected, and maybe even heartbroken.
     
    Neve caresses the black ink that’s
bled deep into the paper. She was so sure of her imminent run-in with Dylan. So
certain it would be a matter of days.
    She flips to another page further
in her diary:
     
    To tell you the truth, I don’t want to move on. I don’t want
time to heal my wounds and wash away my feelings for you into nothing but faded
memories. I don’t want to become jaded, skeptical of love, and go on to
question everything because I now know the pain of loss.
    It breaks me to think that I will never see you again. That
I’ll never have the chance to tell you what I thought the first time I ever saw
you: that I’ve never seen anything greener than your eyes.
     
    The words on the
page blur beyond a veil of tears.
    They made plans.
They were going to backpack through Europe after graduation, slumming it from
hostel to hostel on their own dime, as if neither came from a wealthy family.
They wanted to venture into the unknown with nothing but a map to guide them.
    Instead, Neve is
sitting alone in a place which no longer feels like home, wondering how none of
it turned out the way she thought.
    “Neve,” a
familiar voice nears.
    Neve quickly
collects her amassing tears with her sleeve, and then looks up at the
silhouette towering before her.
    Oh my God …
    Her heart drops
like a heavy apple snapping off its branch. Darkness frames her field of vision,
and her bones befall a deep ache.
    Dylan …
    He steps into
Neve’s memory of his face as though walking into a mask.
    His features are far
more defined than they used to be. His blood-red locks are longer, fuller, and set
ablaze by the sun’s warm gleam. And his