Damien Vale

I shouldn’t have followed her.

But self-control was a currency I’d long since traded for curiosity.

Elena moved through the city like a shadow—never drawing attention, always slipping just out of reach. Dressed in black, her hair pinned back, she looked like something I could never quite touch without it burning me.

She didn’t know I was there.

Not when she stepped off the sidewalk into that bookstore on 9th.

Not when she lingered in the poetry section, fingers tracing the spines of books like they meant something more than paper and ink.

And not when she smiled.

It wasn’t for me.

It was for the young man behind the counter. He said something that made her laugh—soft, effortless. The kind of laugh I hadn’t earned. Not yet.

My jaw clenched.

She never laughed like that when I was near. With me, she was all thorns and silence, like I didn’t deserve softness.

Maybe I didn’t.

I stepped back into the alley shadows before she saw me. Watched her leave minutes later, bag in hand, head tilted toward the evening sky like she was praying. Or pretending.

And I realized something.

She didn’t want to be known.

She wanted to disappear.

Even from herself.

But I couldn’t let her.

Later that night, I sat in front of her apartment building, windows dark except for the faint glow from her bedroom. She was pacing. Talking to someone on the phone. Angry. Tired. Fragile.

It made something in me twist.

I had files on her. Records. Details. But none of them told me what she looked like when she was alone with her walls down. Only this did. Only seeing her like this made the cold in my chest stir.

She was breaking quietly.

And maybe I wanted to be the one who caught the pieces.

Or held them just tightly enough that she couldn’t slip away again.

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