The empty charger lay coiled on Sarah’s desk like a sleeping snake, its USB end dangling off the edge. She stared at it while her phone’s battery percentage dropped steadily - 15%, 14%, 13%. The afternoon light filtered through her dorm room window, casting long shadows across the worn carpet.
“Still haven’t talked to him?” her roommate Mei asked softly from the other bed, not looking up from her textbook.
Sarah shook her head. “What’s the point? He made it clear enough.”
Three days had passed since that awkward conversation with James in the campus coffee shop. The same coffee shop where they first met last semester, both reaching for the last blueberry muffin. Now the memory felt distant, wrapped in a haze of what-ifs and should-haves.
“You know,” Mei closed her book, “sometimes people say things they don’t mean when they’re scared.”
“He wasn’t scared. He was perfectly calm when he said we should ’take a break.’” Sarah picked up the charger, wrapping it around her fingers. “Like he was ordering a coffee.”
The truth was, she had seen it coming. The gradual decline in text messages, the cancelled study dates, the way his eyes would drift during conversations. But acknowledging it meant accepting that sometimes youth and passion weren’t enough to sustain a connection.
Her phone buzzed - 10% battery warning.
“I still have his charger,” Sarah said, holding up the white cord. “He left it here last month.”
“You should return it.”
“Yeah.” Sarah stood up, decision suddenly crystallizing. “Yeah, I should.”
The walk to James’s dorm took exactly seven minutes. She had counted them countless times before, but never with such heavy steps. The late afternoon sun painted everything in golden hues, making the familiar campus landscape feel like a scene from someone else’s life.
She found him sitting on the steps outside his building, headphones on, completely absorbed in whatever was playing on his phone. The sight made her pause - how many times had she teased him about his terrible taste in music?
“James.”
He looked up, surprise flickering across his face as he removed his headphones. “Sarah? I…”
“Your charger,” she held it out. “You left it in my room.”
He stared at the charger, then back at her. “Keep it. I have others.”
“I don’t want to keep it.”
“Sarah, about what I said…”
“No,” she cut him off, “this isn’t about that. This is about not holding onto things that don’t belong to me anymore.”
She placed the charger on the step beside him and turned to leave. Her phone died completely in her pocket, screen going black. But somehow, the weight in her chest felt lighter.
“You know what’s funny?” she said, pausing without turning back. “I actually bought a new charger yesterday. Same model and everything. I just… needed to return this one first.”
As she walked away, she could have sworn she heard him laugh - a soft, surprised sound that carried on the evening breeze. Sometimes endings weren’t about dramatic gestures or bitter words. Sometimes they were as simple as returning a charging cable and finally letting go.
Her dead phone sat heavy in her pocket all the way back to her dorm, but for the first time in days, she didn’t mind the silence.