Chapter 40

By noon, the apartment no longer felt like a place people lived.

It felt like a waiting room.

Not for safety.

For impact.

Keisha sat near the window scrolling through her phone without actually reading anything on the screen.

Every few seconds her attention drifted back toward Malik.

He had barely moved in over an hour.

Still sitting at the dining table.

Still staring at that second phone like it contained a bomb disguised as silence.

No new messages had come through.

And somehow that felt worse.

Keisha hated that she was already adapting to this atmosphere.

Listening for vibrations.

Watching his reactions.

Measuring tension.

It made her feel absorbed into something she didn’t fully understand yet.

“You ever think about changing your number?” she asked finally.

Malik gave a tired half laugh without humor.

“She’d get the new one.”

Keisha frowned.

“How?”

“I stopped asking that question a long time ago.”

That answer irritated her immediately.

Because it sounded defeated.

Like he had surrendered pieces of reality she still believed should make sense.

Keisha stood and walked toward him slowly.

“You can’t keep living like this.”

Malik looked up at her.

“That’s usually what people say before they leave.”

The line hit unexpectedly hard.

Not manipulative.

Not self-pitying.

Just practiced.

Keisha studied his face carefully.

He meant that.

Enough people had already walked away that he expected abandonment to arrive eventually in every conversation.

And somehow that realization made her angrier at Alina than afraid of her.

Because whatever happened between them had hollowed him out emotionally.

Not visibly.

Structurally.

“You think I’m leaving?” she asked quietly.

Malik held her gaze for a second too long before answering.

“I think eventually everyone chooses the version of reality that hurts less.”

Keisha crossed her arms.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only honest one I have.”

Before she could respond, another vibration cut through the room.

Both of them froze instantly.

The conditioning of it scared Keisha now.

How quickly tension occupied space.

Malik picked the phone up slowly.

This time his expression shifted almost immediately.

Not fear.

Recognition.

Keisha stepped closer.

“What?”

Malik stared at the screen another second before locking it.

“Nothing.”

“Malik.”

“It’s nothing.”

“That’s the second time you’ve lied today.”

His jaw tightened.

Keisha held her hand out.

“Show me.”

For a moment it looked like he might refuse.

Then finally he handed her the phone.

The message was short.

She still touches your face when she’s thinking.

Keisha’s stomach dropped.

Her hand instinctively moved away from her cheek.

Malik watched her carefully now.

“She can see us?”

“I don’t know.”

“But she knows what I’m doing.”

“I know.”

Fear moved sharper through her chest now.

Not vague anymore.

Specific.

Observed.

Keisha turned slowly toward the apartment windows.

Every building outside suddenly felt wrong.

Every parked car.

Every shadow behind glass.

“This is insane.”

Malik didn’t disagree.

“She used to say observation changes behavior,” he said quietly.

Keisha looked back at him.

“What?”

“She believed people became predictable once they knew they were being perceived.”

“That’s psychotic.”

A pause.

“Yes.”

The honesty of that answer unsettled her again.

No defending Alina.

No romanticizing her.

Just exhaustion.

Keisha handed the phone back.

“So what do we do?”

Malik looked down at the device in his hand.

“For now?”

Another pause.

“We wait.”

Keisha stared at him in disbelief.

“That’s your plan?”

“It’s the safest one.”

“That’s not a plan, Malik. That’s paralysis.”

Something flickered behind his eyes then.

Brief.

Defensive.

“You think I haven’t tried fixing this?”

The sharpness in his voice shifted the room instantly.

Keisha went quiet.

Malik stood abruptly now, pacing toward the kitchen.

“I changed apartments.”

One breath.

“Jobs.”

Another.

“Numbers.”

He laughed once under his breath, hollow and frustrated.

“I even left the city for six months.”

Keisha watched him carefully.

“And?”

Malik stopped moving.

“She still knew things.”

The room fell silent again.

Because he wasn’t speaking like someone guessing anymore.

He sounded like somebody worn down by repeated confirmation.

Keisha leaned against the counter slowly.

“What if she’s bluffing?”

“I hoped that too.”

“But?”

Malik looked at her directly.

“She once described a conversation I had in a moving car three states away.”

A chill swept through Keisha’s body.

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

The terrifying part was how truthful he sounded.

No performance.

No dramatics.

Just a man exhausted by uncertainty.

Keisha suddenly realized something else.

“You still love her.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them.

Malik’s entire expression hardened instantly.

“No.”

Too fast.

Too sharp.

Keisha saw it anyway.

Not love exactly.

Damage.

History tangled too deeply into fear to separate cleanly.

“You do,” she said quieter now.

Malik looked away.

“She spent years convincing me reality bent around emotion.”

His voice sounded distant suddenly.

“Do you understand what that does to somebody?”

Keisha said nothing.

“Every feeling starts becoming dangerous.”

That line settled heavily between them.

Because now she understood something she hadn’t before.

Malik wasn’t afraid of Alina alone.

He was afraid of attachment itself.

The phone vibrated again.

Both of them looked down instantly.

This time Malik didn’t move to pick it up.

Neither of them did.

The sound sat there between them like something alive.

Buzz.

Silence.

Buzz.

Keisha finally reached for it first.

Malik’s head lifted sharply.

“Don’t.”

Too late.

She picked the phone up and looked at the screen.

Unknown Number.

New Message.

Her thumb hesitated only once before opening it.

Then the blood drained from her face completely.

Malik stood immediately.

“What?”

Keisha couldn’t answer at first.

Because the message wasn’t sent to him.

It was addressed to her.

You should ask him what happened the night I disappeared.

The room went completely still.

And for the first time since all of this started—

Keisha realized Malik might not be the only person hiding pieces of the story.