Advik’s POV The moment she walked into the living room, something in me shifted in a way I couldn’t ignore. It wasn’t relief, not fully, because relief comes with calm, and there was nothing calm about what I felt. It was sharper than that, heavier, like something inside me had been pulled tight and refused to loosen even after seeing her standing there in front of me. She was back, she was safe, she was exactly where she was supposed to be, and still… something was wrong. I could see it in the way she held herself, in the way her silence stayed around her like a wall no one else could cross. She didn’t look at me the way she usually did. She didn’t react, didn’t question, didn’t speak. That wasn’t her. I knew her enough now to recognize the difference between silence and distance, and this… this was distance she was forcing. When her eyes met mine for that brief second, I caught it immediately, the tension, the restraint, something hidden so deep it made my jaw tighten without me r
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