A week passes.
Then another.
Jude doesn't resurface.
No sightings. No rumors with substance. Just silence that settles in like fog and refuses to lift.
That's when I stop worrying something happened to him.
And start understanding that this is happening on purpose.
Cassian feels it too.
He doesn't say Jude's name anymore. Avoids it like it might summon something neither of us is ready for.
But the tension creeps in anyway.
"You don't laugh the same," he says one night, not accusing. Observant.
"I laugh," I reply.
"Not like before."
I turn to him. "Are you asking if I miss him?"
He hesitates. That's new. Cassian rarely hesitates.
"I'm asking if I'm standing in the space he left."
That lands harder than any jealousy would have.
"No," I say slowly. "You're standing beside me. The space he left is… behind me."
Cassian studies my face, searching for the lie.
He doesn't find one.
But that doesn't mean he relaxes.
Because being chosen while someone else is absent doesn't feel the same as being chosen outright.
And he knows it.