He replied at 6:47 in the morning.I know because I checked my phone the moment I woke up, which I told myself was habit and not anticipation. The email was sitting at the top of my inbox from the same Crown administrative address I had sent to the night before.Short. Just like mine.I'm glad you did.Four words back. Clean and simple, with nothing extra attached no pressure, no follow-up question, no attempt to push through the small opening I had given him. Just acknowledgment. Just presence.I put the phone face-down on the nightstand and lay there staring at the ceiling for a long moment.Then I got up and made coffee and burned the toast and told myself the warmth in my chest was just the morning.Isla noticed immediately.She noticed everything it was both her greatest quality and her most inconvenient one. She watched me move around the kitchen with those steady grey eyes and said nothing for a full two minutes, which for Isla was practically a record."You're humming," she sa
Last Updated : 2026-04-02 Read more