He had always been mine のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 131 - チャプター 140

KILLIAN POV The day moved too slowly and then too fast.I took Leigh to school. Maya kissed the top of her head and did not kiss me. At the studio I told Lang I would be leaving early. He nodded without asking why. The painting on the easel stayed unresolved; I stopped pretending it would resolve and spent the afternoon cleaning brushes that were already clean, reorganizing a drawer that did not need it, and checking the clock on the wall more often than I meant to.At five I went home, changed my shirt, and stood in the kitchen with a glass of water I did not drink. Maya was on a late shift. Leigh was at a neighbor’s until eight. The apartment was quiet in the particular way it got when both of them were gone—less like peace than like a held breath. I left a note on the counter. *Meeting. Back by nine.* The handwriting looked like mine. The words had stopped meaning what they said weeks ago.The car was not necessary. I knew the way. I walked the last part because the air helped and

KILLIAN POV Morning came in on the sound of Leigh’s voice.She wanted breakfast and the tiger and an explanation for why Mama had slept in her room. Maya answered from the kitchen in the bright, practical tone she used when the ground was unstable and a child needed it to look flat. I stayed in our bedroom until I heard the rhythm of ordinary preparation—cereal, shoes, the search for a missing library book—then went out.Maya did not look at me while she packed Leigh’s bag. She checked the temperature of the milk. She tied a shoe. She kissed Leigh’s head and told her Auntie might visit later. Only when Leigh ran to the door with the tiger under one arm did Maya speak to me, low enough that the words stayed between us.“I’m taking her to school. Then I’m going to my sister’s for a few hours. We can talk when I get back. Not before. I need the day.”“All right.”“Don’t call him while I’m gone. Don’t leave. Be here when we come home.”She didn’t wait for a promise. She took Leigh’s hand

KILLIAN POV Maya kept her word.She slept in Leigh’s room. In the morning she moved through the kitchen with the efficient kindness of someone co-parenting with a person she could not currently stand beside. She made Leigh’s lunch. She answered Leigh’s questions about why Mama’s pillow was on the small bed. She said Mama and Daddy were figuring something out and it was not Leigh’s job to fix it. Leigh accepted this with the serious nod of a child who had learned that adults sometimes broke and needed time. At the door Maya looked at me once.“I’ll pick her up. Be here for dinner. If you’re not, send a message that isn’t a story.”Then they were gone.I stood in the quiet and felt the rule settle over the apartment like a new piece of furniture. No lies about where I was or who I was with. Time to decide what life I was actually living. The honesty of it was almost worse than the silence had been. Silence had been a fog. This was a clock.My phone had two messages waiting from the nig

KILLIAN POV The door closed behind him and the apartment did not feel like mine again.I stood in the kitchen with the overhead light too bright and the smell of his presence still in the air—expensive, controlled, wrong in a space that usually smelled like cereal and dish soap. The tiger was still on the sofa. Leigh’s drawing was still on the fridge. None of it had changed while he inventoried my choices and took Harlow’s card from my hand like it had always belonged to him.I sat down at the table because standing felt like the argument was still happening.He had come to my door. He had stood in my kitchen. He had told me I did not have the context and that four minutes of my judgment were not enough. Then he had left when I told him to—not because he agreed, but because pushing further in this room, with Maya’s absence already loaded, would have cost him something he was not ready to spend. The restraint was not kindness. It was strategy. I knew the difference by now.My phone st

KILLIAN POV They came through the door at six on the dot.Leigh had a paper crown from school and a story about a spelling test she had decided was unfair. Maya set her keys on the counter and sent Leigh to wash her hands with a calm that cost her something. When the bathroom door closed she looked at me fully for the first time since morning.“Well.”“I need Leigh in bed before we do this.”“Then put her in bed. I’ll wait.”The evening ran on rails. Dinner. Bath. Story. Leigh asked why Mama’s pillow was still on the small bed and Maya said Mama and Daddy were still figuring things out and it was not her job to fix it. Leigh accepted this with a solemn nod and fell asleep with the tiger under her chin. I closed her door most of the way and came back to the table.Maya was already sitting. Her hands were folded. Her face was set in the expression she used when she had finished being careful with someone else’s feelings.“What life are you living,” she said.I had spent the walk home t