There's something about soft light that makes me want to confess things I shouldn't.
Like the way Elian's laughter, barely audible under the lazy drone of a mid-morning café playlist, makes the walls I've built shake just enough to let the air in. He's sketching something,quiet, focused,while I pretend to be invested in the outline of my next article. I'm not. My attention flits like dust motes in sunbeams, settling again and again on the curve of his brow, the way his thumb smudges the page, the tilt of his head as he looks up and asks, "Do you ever feel like words betray you?"
His voice is a question wrapped in velvet. It's too early for metaphysics and too late for pretending I'm not unraveling.
"Every day," I say, setting down my pen. My voice sounds different with him...quieter, more cautious. As if I'm afraid it'll echo too loud in the space between us.
Elian smiles, not because it's funny, but because he understands. The kind of understanding you don't get from someone unless they, too, have drowned in the slow pull of their own mind.
He turns his sketchpad toward me. It's not a drawing of me, but I recognize the feeling: a pair of hands open under a leaking faucet. There's something intimate about the water...about how the hands don't flinch from the cold.
"It's about learning not to close," he says.
My chest tightens.
Outside, the city softens under drizzle. People scurry beneath umbrellas, faces half-hidden in scarves. I envy them. There's safety in obscurity.
"Why did you really come today?" he asks.
The question sits there like a stone on the table.
Because D.K. hasn't texted since Tuesday. Because silence from him hurts more than I want to admit. Because I keep thinking about the way he walked away after our last conversation like he was leaving a door unlocked, waiting to see if I'd follow.
"I needed silence," I say.
Elian doesn't challenge it. He simply nods, sips his coffee, and draws another line.
Later, as we walk through the city, I feel strangely lighter. Like being around someone who doesn't need anything from me gives me space to remember who I was before I started breaking myself into pieces for others.
We stop at a small bookstore. He buys a battered secondhand poetry collection. I pick up a notebook, even though I don't need one. Our fingers brush at the register. It shouldn't feel like a moment. But it does.
That night, back home, I open my laptop and do something reckless.
I look her up.
Mira Thandi.
It takes less than a minute to find her. She's still impossibly beautiful,skin like burnt caramel, eyes that used to read me better than I read myself. She's just been featured in a "30 Under 30" list. PR firm. Cape Town. Engaged.
I click the link. My stomach coils.
A flood of memory surges: late-night tea in our dorm, shared dreams on notebook margins, her hand on my shoulder the day I broke down after that call from home. And then the silence. The way she disappeared after I needed her most.
We haven't spoken in five years.
There's a DM button beside her profile. I hover.
Then I close the tab.
D.K. texts at 11:43 PM.
DK:Are you around
Three words. No punctuation. Just like him.
I stare at them longer than I should. I don't respond. Not because I'm angry, but because I don't know what I'd say that wouldn't crack open everything I've been pretending to keep whole.
On Sunday, I see D.K. at the community center.
He's helping set up chairs for a panel on social media's influence in modern literature. His hair's longer. He looks... tired.
We lock eyes. A flash. Then he looks away.
"Hey," he says eventually, when I pass by the sign-in desk.
"Hey."
Silence.
"I've been meaning to call," he adds.
I nod, pretending not to notice Elian walking in behind me.
During the panel, I sit between them.
D.K. is tense, words measured. Elian is present, his energy undemanding. I feel like a tide pulled between two moons.
When someone in the audience asks about the importance of emotional accuracy in prose, D.K. says, "It's about honesty. Even if it costs you."
Elian simply says, "Sometimes the gentlest things are the heaviest."
I don't breathe for a moment.
Afterward, Mira's name flashes on my phone.
A new message request. Three words.
Mira: You look radiant.
I don't know how she saw me. Maybe the panel was live-streamed. Maybe she's been watching all along.
I don't know if my hands are shaking because of D.K. or Elian or Mira or the way the past refuses to stay where I left it.
All I know is, for the first time in years, I feel like something's about to change.
And I'm no longer sure if I'm ready for it.
I feel like this is the right moment to run.
But ....
Run where?