The apartment was too quiet when I got home. Usually, silence meant peace, but tonight it only echoed with everything I'd tried to ignore at dinner.
I set my purse down on the chair and kicked off my heels, sighing as I sank onto the edge of my bed. My body was tired, but my mind wouldn't settle.
I should have been replaying Elijah's stories, his laughter, the warmth of sharing a meal with family. That's what the night was supposed to be about.
Instead, all I could see was Kairo.
The way he looked at me across the table, steady and unflinching. Like he could read every thought I was trying to bury. Like he knew.
I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, as though I could scrub him from my mind. But his image stayed, sharp and unrelenting. The dark cut of his suit, the shape of his hands as he lifted his glass, the weight of his silence that somehow felt louder than words.
My heart kicked faster, traitorous.
"No," I whispered to the empty room. "You can't do this."
But hadn't I already?
Every moment I spent thinking of him was a betrayal—to Elijah, to myself, to the lines that should never have blurred in the first place. And yet, the harder I tried not to think about him, the more he filled the spaces I couldn't control.
I lay back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling. The city hummed faintly outside, a reminder that life went on, indifferent to the storm unraveling in my chest.
I told myself tomorrow I'd be different. Stronger. I'd bury myself in work, in responsibility, in anything that wasn't him.
But as I closed my eyes, the truth pressed in like a whisper I couldn't silence:
No matter how far I ran, Kairo was already under my skin.