I should have felt better.
The afternoon at Daniel's had been good, genuinely good, the kind of good that usually quiets every doubt I'd been carrying.
Snacks and popcorn fights and his forehead against mine, promising "soon" in a voice that sounded like he meant it. I'd left feeling lighter than I had in weeks.
And yet, sitting on the edge of my bed that evening, the lightness had thinned into something else.
Not suspicion exactly, I hadn't found anything, hadn't seen anything that should have worried me. Just an unsettled feeling that sat quietly underneath the good afternoon, refusing to fully leave.
I picked up my phone and called Saraph before I'd fully decided to.
She answered on the second ring. "Nuella?"
"Can you come over?"
"Already grabbing my shoes."
When she arrived, she didn't knock, just let herself in the way she always did, found me on the edge of the bed, and sat down beside me without asking questions first.
I leaned into her shoulder, and for a minute neither of us said anything.
"So," she said eventually. "How'd it go with Daniel?"
"It was good," I admitted. "Really good, actually. We hung out, ate too many snacks, he was, he was "Daniel." Warm. Present. He even said he'd explain everything soon, and I believed him."
"That sounds promising."
"It was." I picked at the edge of my blanket. "I didn't find anything, Saraph. Nothing was off. His apartment was just his apartment. He wasn't acting strange or guilty or anything like that."
"Then what's wrong?"
I sat with the question for a moment, trying to find the honest answer instead of the convenient one.
"I don't know how to explain it. Everything was fine. He was fine. And I still came home feeling like something's not adding up.
Like there's a piece of this I'm not seeing, even though nothing today gave me a reason to think that."
Saraph was quiet, considering. "Maybe it's just leftover nerves. From the weeks of distance."
"Maybe," I said. "Probably, honestly. But it doesn't feel like nerves. It feels like..." I struggled for the word. "Instinct. Like some part of me knows there's still something he hasn't said, even if today wasn't it."
"That's not crazy," she said carefully. "He did tell you there's something going on. He just hasn't told you what yet.
Your gut might just be picking up on the fact that the story's not finished, not that something's wrong with today."
That actually helped. I exhaled, feeling some of the knot in my chest loosen slightly.
"I don't think he's lying to me," I said. "I really don't. I think he's scared of something, and I think it's bigger than 'family stuff' the way he's been saying it. I just don't know what."
"Then we don't assume the worst," Saraph said. "We don't go digging or treating him like a suspect, you said yourself today was good, and I believe you.
But I'm not going to sit here and watch you carry this feeling alone either."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I'm here," she said simply. "If something else comes up, if the feeling gets worse, if he finally tells you whatever this is, you don't have to process any of it solo.
I'm not going to investigate Daniel like he's a criminal. But I am going to be here for you while you figure out what your gut's actually trying to tell you."
I felt something in my chest ease at that, not the unsettled feeling itself, which didn't fully go away, but the weight of carrying it by myself.
"Thank you," I said quietly.
"Don't thank me." She squeezed my hand. "That's the job."
We sat together a while longer, the room quiet and comfortable, and though the small nagging feeling never fully disappeared, it became something I could hold instead of something holding me.
Whatever Daniel was still carrying, I trusted that today had been real. The warmth, the kiss, the promise, none of that had been a performance.
But I also knew, with the same quiet certainty, that the story wasn't finished yet.
And soon, one way or another, I'd find out the rest of it.