the habit of you.

1.

they both knew they were no good for each other.

that was the strange thing about it, the detail that made the entire situation feel less like a tragedy and more like a decision neither of them had the courage to make. there were relationships that collapsed under the weight of dishonesty, relationships that ended because two people wanted different things, and relationships that died slow, natural deaths. but theirs belonged to none of those categories. if anything, it survived because of its dysfunction. every quality that should have driven them apart seemed to pull them closer together, like two magnets turned the wrong way, resisting each other so violently that the force itself became a form of connection.

by then, they had spent nearly a year orbiting one another. not together, not exactly. together implied certainty. together implied something stable enough to define. what existed between rowan and violet was more elusive than that, something that shifted depending on the day, the hour, the mood of the conversation. some nights, they spoke like lovers, lingering on the phone until dawn threatened the horizon, their voices softened by exhaustion and the comfort that comes from knowing someone is still there, listening. other nights, they felt like strangers attempting to recreate a version of intimacy they could no longer reach. the distance between them seemed to expand and contract without warning, and neither of them knew how to stop it.

rowan had spent months convincing herself that patience was a virtue rather than a symptom. she waited for replies that arrived hours later, sometimes days. she learned how to pretend disappointment wasn't disappointment, how to tell herself violet was busy, distracted, overwhelmed, anything but uninterested. she became fluent in excuses that weren't hers to make. every unanswered text was given a reasonable explanation. every sudden disappearance was met with understanding she rarely received in return. somewhere along the way, she stopped noticing how often she was the one bending. love, or whatever this was, had quietly transformed into an exercise in endurance.

the worst part was that violet never asked her to do it.

that would have been easier.

easier to resent.

easier to identify.

instead, violet possessed a talent that rowan had never encountered before. she knew how to leave without actually leaving. she could vanish for days and return with a single message, a casual observation, a joke, and somehow the silence that came before it would be erased. not forgiven, exactly. simply overwritten. rowan hated how effective it was. she hated that one notification could undo a week of anger. hated that she could spend days rehearsing all the things she planned to say, only to abandon every speech the moment violet reappeared.

there were moments when she thought she understood the problem. violet wanted closeness until closeness became real. she wanted connection until it demanded consistency. she reached for people the way someone reaches toward a fire on a cold night, desperate for warmth but unwilling to stay close enough to get burned. rowan, unfortunately, was built in the opposite direction. she loved with an almost reckless sincerity, throwing herself into people completely, believing that effort could compensate for uncertainty. if violet was constantly searching for exits, rowan was constantly building homes.

it was exhausting.

and yet neither of them left.

that was what made it toxic in a way neither would admit. people imagine toxic relationships as constant explosions, dramatic fights, cruel words thrown across rooms. sometimes it looked like that. more often, it looked like two people continually choosing a situation that hurt them because the thought of losing it felt worse. it looked like rowan staring at her phone at one in the morning, knowing she deserved better while secretly hoping violet would text. it looked like violet disappearing every time things became serious and returning the moment she felt rowan slipping away. neither of them were innocent. neither of them were entirely to blame.

outside, winter had begun settling over the town. the trees stood bare against pale skies, their branches black and skeletal in the fading afternoon light. rowan sat by her bedroom window watching snow drift lazily across the street, her phone resting untouched beside her. she couldn't remember the last conversation they had. not because it hadn't mattered, but because there had been so many versions of the same conversation that they eventually blurred together. promises to communicate better. promises to try harder. promises that sounded convincing while they were being made and impossible the moment reality returned.

for the first time, she allowed herself to consider the possibility that this was all there would ever be.

not a grand romance.

not some epic love story that justified the years of uncertainty.

just this endless cycle of wanting and waiting and wondering.

the thought should have devastated her. instead, it brought an unexpected sense of calm. there was relief in seeing something clearly, even when the truth was disappointing. maybe some people weren't meant to become permanent fixtures in your life. maybe some people arrived only to teach you the shape of your own loneliness.

she was still turning that thought over in her mind when her phone lit up beside her.

for a moment, she ignored it.

then she looked down.

and saw violet's name.

just two words.

hey stranger.

rowan stared at the screen while her heartbeat stumbled somewhere inside her chest.

it was astonishing, really, how quickly a person could become a habit.

even after everything.

a/n: man, it feels good to be back. i wonder where the story of rowan and violet will take us...