로그인~Elena~A YEAR LATERTime had a way of doing what nothing else could. It softened the sharp edges of things that once felt unbearable and stretched moments that used to rush past me into something I could actually sit in without feeling like I needed to escape. I didn’t wake up bracing for the day anymore, and that alone felt like a victory I hadn’t expected to win so quietly.I stood by the doorway, one hand resting lightly against the frame as I watched Richard across the room. He had Amara in his arms, holding her with a kind of ease that still caught me off guard because I remembered the first time he carried her, how stiff he had been, how careful to the point of almost being afraid. That version of him felt distant now, replaced by someone who adjusted her weight against his chest without thinking, who instinctively rocked her when she shifted, who spoke to her like she understood every word.“You’re doing it again,” he said, glancing up at me briefly before looking back at her
~Elena~I didn’t think I would be this calm standing in front of a room full of people waiting to hear me speak. But I was.Not because I wasn’t nervous, but because the kind of nervousness I used to feel had changed. It wasn’t fear anymore. It was awareness. Awareness that I was no longer telling a story people were trying to interpret through noise.The book launch space was warmer than I expected, not in temperature but in energy. People weren’t whispering in corners the way they used to. They were holding copies of my book, flipping pages, reading quietly instead of tearing things apart online.Richard stood slightly behind me, not in a way that made me feel guarded, but in a way that felt like he was choosing to stay present without taking over. That was new for us. It wasn’t distance, but it wasn’t control either.“You’re staring again,” I said without turning fully.“I’m observing,” he replied.“That’s the same thing,” I said.“It isn’t,” he said.I finally looked at him. “You
~Matteo~I knew something was off before I even touched my phone, and that was not instinct or emotion, it was experience. Numbers behaved in patterns, attention followed rules, outrage had a rhythm, and once you understood that rhythm, you could control it, stretch it, redirect it, or kill it entirely. That was how this worked. That was how I worked. So when things slowed down in a way that didn’t match the pattern I had already calculated, I didn’t need anyone to tell me something had gone wrong.I sat there for a while, staring at the screen in front of me, refreshing the analytics page again and again, watching the numbers stall in a way that made no sense. The article should have still been climbing. Julian’s video should have pushed it further. The narrative was supposed to expand, not settle.“That’s not how this works,” I said under my breath, leaning forward as if getting closer to the screen would somehow correct it.I refreshed again and there was still nothing.A slight i
~Julian~I didn’t go looking for it. That was the first thing I told myself when her name showed up again.I was lying on the couch, my phone resting on my chest, the television running in the background without sound. There was no plan sitting in my head, no next move waiting to be executed, no anger pushing me forward like it had been doing for weeks.Then my phone buzzed.I glanced at it lazily, expecting nothing important, but the moment I saw her name trending again, something in me tightened before I could stop it.“Elena Hale.”I stared at the notification for a second longer than I should have, my thumb hovering over it before I exhaled and tapped it open.“If this is another stunt…” I muttered under my breath.The page loaded quickly. It wasn’t a video. It wasn’t a scandal.It wasn’t even a headline trying to tear her apart.It was her book… live. I frowned slightly, sitting up as I scrolled through the page, my eyes moving faster now, trying to understand what exactly I was
~Elena~I knew something was different before I even opened my eyes, and for once it wasn’t dread waiting for me on the other side of waking up. My body felt lighter, not completely free of everything that had been weighing me down these past weeks, but lighter in a way that made me stay still for a moment, my hand resting over my stomach as I took a slow breath and allowed myself to exist without rushing into panic.That lasted exactly until my phone started buzzing.At first, I ignored it. I told myself it could be anything, a message from Diego, a random notification, something small that didn’t require my attention immediately, but then it buzzed again, and again, and again, until the sound became impossible to ignore. My eyes opened slowly, my gaze moving to the bedside table where the screen kept lighting up, and just looking at it made something in my chest tighten in a way that felt too familiar.“Not again,” I muttered, pushing myself up against the headboard as I stared at
~Richard~By the time I walked into the boardroom, I already knew the numbers.I had gone through them twice that morning, once in silence and once again with Martin on the phone, and neither time had made them look any better than they were. The drop had slowed, but it hadn’t reversed. The damage had been done, and now everything depended on whether we could stop it from getting worse.The room was already filled when I stepped in.They all looked up, this time not with the same hostility as before, but not with confidence either.I took my seat at the head of the table without rushing, placing the file in front of me as the screen at the far end displayed the current projections.No one spoke immediately. That was new.Before, they would have started the moment I walked in, pushing, questioning, demanding answers. Now, they were waiting, watching, trying to decide what this meeting was going to be.One of the senior investors finally leaned forward. “We’ve been reviewing the last fo
~Elena~“So your mom has a family that you are seemingly cool with. What about your father? He doesn’t have any woman in his life? Or he is not just interested in that? Or did he have one and it didn’t work out?” I asked as I took a sip from my glass of wine.Julian stayed quiet for a few seconds,
~Elena~I woke up early the next day even though I was tipsy the previous night. Even in my subconscious, I couldn’t stop thinking about one thing, and that was my meeting with Mr. Richard to talk about my book.I wanted to look him in the eye as he talked to me about it. Most especially, I wanted
~Richard~I swallowed and nodded hastily, dismissing the thoughts of how things ended. “Yeah, of course. I felt the emotions from your characters right from the beginning of the book.”I looked at her and saw a knowing smile on her face, like she could see right past the façade I put up. “Okay.” Sh
A week later. ~Julian~ I rushed down the stairs, adjusting my shirt, a wide smile plastered on my face. Tonight was the night—I would be taking Elena out on a date. I wasn’t sure why I was so excited about this, but I was. It felt like I was doing this for the first time.‘I really do like this g







