Laura mentions it casually.
They're walking again after her session.
Not the same route as before.
Not the park.
Just movement.
"My therapist reacted strangely," she says.
He glances at her.
"Strangely how?"
"She tried to hide a smile."
That makes him blink.
"Why?"
"I described the afternoon," Laura continues. "The cat. The… stillness."
She thinks about it carefully.
"I didn't think it was notable."
He stays quiet.
"She said exposure therapy doesn't always have to be dramatic. Sometimes it's about allowing the nervous system to register safety."
That word again.
Safe.
"She asked what you did," Laura adds.
"What did you say?"
"That you didn't do anything."
He exhales faintly.
"That's accurate."
"She said," Laura continues slowly, "that sometimes not doing anything is the point."
He doesn't respond immediately.
She looks ahead.
"I don't understand why she reacted the way she did."
He pauses.
His chest tightens slightly at the memory of that word in his room.
Safe.
He hadn't known what to do with it.
Now the therapist smiling makes something else stir.
"Maybe she just thought it was progress," he says.
Laura nods.
"Yes."
But she doesn't sound fully convinced.
They don't intend to tell anyone.
It just… slips.
Amelia notices shifts in oxygen levels.
It's almost a talent.
"You two look different," she announces one afternoon.
Sunny immediately narrows her eyes.
"Different how?"
"Subtly conspiratorial," Amelia replies.
"There's no conspiracy," Axel says evenly.
Zane leans back in his chair.
"I'm listening."
Laura hesitates before answering.
"I pet Miso."
The room goes quiet for half a second.
Sunny blinks.
"You what?"
Amelia gasps dramatically.
"Oh."
Zane squints.
"That's it?"
Laura nods.
"And I said I felt safe."
Sunny's hands fly to her mouth.
Amelia makes a strangled noise.
Zane physically shoves Axel's shoulder.
"You and Laura had a moment, huh?"
Axel looks genuinely confused.
"We were sitting on my bed."
"With the cat," Laura clarifies.
"That's worse," Amelia mutters.
Sunny slaps her arm.
"Stop."
"What?" Amelia hisses. "It's textbook."
"Textbook what?" Axel asks.
Laura looks equally puzzled.
"We were sitting," she says slowly. "Patting a cat."
Amelia stares at both of them.
"You two are impossibly dense."
Zane crosses his arms.
"You felt safe," he repeats to Laura.
"Yes."
"In his bedroom."
"With the cat," she repeats, as if that explains everything.
Sunny clamps a hand over Amelia's mouth as she tries to speak again.
"This is not helpful," Sunny mutters.
Amelia wriggles free.
"You don't just 'feel safe' in someone's bedroom for no reason."
Laura frowns slightly.
"Why not?"
Zane looks between them.
Axel meets Laura's eyes.
There's a shared confusion there.
A silent question.
What are they seeing that we aren't?
Neither of them feel like anything changed.
They didn't flirt.
They didn't confess.
They didn't even touch.
They just existed in the same space without pressure.
Amelia groans dramatically.
"I refuse to be the only one with pattern recognition here."
Sunny sighs.
Zane smirks.
Axel looks back at Laura.
She tilts her head slightly.
Still trying to calculate the variable they're missing.
He almost smiles.
Whatever it is—
It wasn't intentional.
And somehow, that feels more significant than if it had been.