Elena Rivers

Something was off.

I could feel it in the way the night clung to my skin when I stepped outside. Too still. Too aware.

I pulled my coat tighter and told myself it was just exhaustion. A long day at the firm. A longer conversation with a mother who forgot my birthday. Again.

But the feeling didn’t leave.

Not when I smiled at Jamie in the bookstore like everything inside me wasn’t unraveling. Not when I laughed at his dumb joke about poetry and sadness being married. And not when I walked home with shadows stretching behind me like they knew my name.

I hated how much I looked for him.

Not with my eyes. With something deeper.

Damien Vale had a way of staying in the room long after he was gone.

And now, he was everywhere—in the unread messages, in the memory of his voice, in the way my skin remembered the heat of his gaze like it had branded me.

I told myself I didn’t care.

I lied beautifully.

My phone buzzed. I glanced down.

Unknown number. No message.

I stared at the screen. A chill crawled up my spine like a whisper I couldn't catch. I deleted it. Locked the phone. Moved on. Or pretended to.

In my apartment, I let the silence wrap around me like armor. Cooked something I wouldn’t eat. Paced with a phone call I didn’t want to have. My friend Maya’s voice on the other end was soft, cautious.

"You don’t sound like yourself," she said.

"I’m fine," I lied again.

But I caught my reflection in the window—and something in it fractured.

Not because I was crying.

But because I wasn’t.

Because I didn’t know how anymore.

And outside, beneath the streetlight, I thought I saw a car. Parked. Still. Watching.

I blinked—and it was gone. Or maybe it was never there.

Still, I shut the curtains.

Not because I was afraid.

Because some part of me wanted to be.