LOGIN“I am bored,” she said, stretching across the couch like she had already decided something. “We should go out.”I glanced at her. “You just woke up.”“And?” she replied, turning her head toward me. “That does not cancel boredom.”I leaned back slightly. “You got suspended.”She smiled. “Exactly. That means I have free time.”Kai said nothing from where he stood, but I could feel his attention shift slightly, like he was listening without interrupting.Bella sat up suddenly, her eyes lighting up with that familiar spark I had not seen in a while.“Let’s go watch a movie,” she said.I hesitated for a second.Not because I did not want to, but because it felt strange, stepping out like everything was normal when it clearly was not.Bella noticed immediately.“You need it,” she added, softer this time. “Stop thinking so much for once.”I exhaled slowly.She was not wrong.“Fine,” I said.Her smile widened instantly. “Good. Get ready.”—The cinema was not crowded.That alone made it easie
I woke up to quiet movement.Not loud enough to startle me, but enough to pull me out of sleep slowly, like my mind was trying to catch up before my body did. For a moment, I did not move. I just lay there, staring at nothing in particular, trying to place where I was.Then I felt it.Warmth, Close Breath.Bella.She was still there, curled slightly into my side like she had not moved much through the night. Her breathing was soft and steady, her hand loosely resting against my arm like she needed that small point of contact to stay grounded even in sleep.I exhaled slowly, careful not to wake her.For a second, everything felt… normal.Not perfect, not simple, but in a way that did not demand anything from me. No questions. No tension. Just a moment where nothing was pulling at me.I stayed like that for a while.Just listening to her breathe.Then eventually, I shifted slightly, easing myself out from under her without breaking that calm. She stirred a little, her brows pulling toge
We did not realize how late it had gotten until the silence in the apartment started to feel deeper.Not the kind that comes from a quiet evening, but the kind that settles in when the day has taken too much out of you. Bella had stopped talking at some point, her energy finally dipping after everything she had said, everything I had told her.She looked at me, then at the bed.“I am not leaving you alone tonight,” she said simply.I let out a small breath. “I was not planning to ask you to.”She nodded once like that settled it.We stood up almost at the same time and walked toward the bed, neither of us saying anything else. It did not feel awkward. It did not feel strange. It felt nice.We both slipped off our shoes without thinking, small movements that felt automatic, like we had done this a hundred times before even though we had not. Bella moved first, climbing onto the bed and pulling the covers over herself without ceremony.“I am exhausted,” she muttered.“That is obvious,”
We did not stay in the dining area for long.As much as I wanted to hold onto that moment, to sit there and pretend everything was normal again, I knew it would not last. There was too much sitting between us, too many unanswered questions, too much time we had lost.I stood up first.“Come,” I said quietly.Bella did not argue. She followed me immediately, like she already knew we were not done, like she had been waiting for this part more than anything else.We walked back into the room Kai had given me. I closed the door behind us, not bothering to lock it this time. The space felt smaller now, but not in a suffocating way. Just… full.Bella looked around briefly before turning her attention back to me, her expression already shifting from relief to something more serious.“Start talking,” she said.I let out a slow breath and sat on the edge of the bed. For a second, I did not know where to begin. There was too much, and none of it felt easy to explain.But she was Bella.If there
I did not realize how long I stayed in that position until the quiet started to feel different.Just… still.At some point, the exhaustion caught up with me, not enough to sleep, but enough to make everything feel slower. My thoughts were no longer racing, just sitting there, waiting, like they knew I would come back to them eventually.A soft knock came from the other side of the door.I did not move immediately.Then Kai’s voice followed, calm as always.“Elias. You should eat.”I exhaled slowly, pushing myself up from the floor. My body felt heavier than it should, like I had carried more than just myself into this room. I brushed my hand over my face quickly before unlocking the door and stepping out.Kai was already in the hallway, leaning slightly against the wall like he had been waiting but did not want to pressure me.I did not say anything.He did not either.We walked into the dining area in silence, and the table was already set. Simple. Clean. Like everything else about h
The ride was silent the entire way.Kai tried a few times to talk, I could tell from the way he glanced at me and the small shifts in his tone whenever he said my name, but I did not respond. Not because I did not hear him, but because I did not trust my voice to stay steady.So I just watched the road.Watched everything blur past the window like my thoughts, none of it settling into anything I could hold onto properly.Eventually, he stopped trying.That silence should have felt comforting. It did not.It felt like something I was sitting inside with no clear way out.When we arrived, I realized it was not a house like I expected. It was an apartment building, quiet and modern, tucked away from the main noise of the city. Kai got out first, then waited for me without saying anything, like he was giving me the choice to follow or not.I followed.We went up together in silence, the elevator ride even quieter than the car had been. The doors opened into a hallway that felt too clean,
The ramen spot Luca picked was tucked down a side street off campus, the kind of place you only find if someone tells you about it. Narrow door, red lantern swinging above it, handwritten menu taped to the window, steam fogging the glass from inside. No neon sign. No line out the door. Just the sme
My alarm blared like a drill sergeant at 7:15 a.m.—that annoying default tone I’d been too lazy to change. I slapped at my phone until it shut up, then rolled over, blinking at the empty bed across the room. Luca’s side was made up tight, skateboard gone, backpack missing from the desk chair. No no
I was already half unpacked when the door opened.My side of the room looked like a bomb had gone off in a Forever 21 dressing room: clothes everywhere, fairy lights tangled on the floor, my makeup bag spilling lip gloss tubes across the desk like colorful confetti. I’d been blasting Olivia Rodrigo
Riley had been acting strange since breakfast.Not obvious-strange. Not the kind of strange that makes you ask “what’s wrong?” right away. It was quieter. Slippery. The kind of weird that creeps up on you until you realize you’ve been watching it for hours without naming it.She woke up before me—u







