“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he said softly.
My breath caught. “Then why does it feel like you’re already leaving?”
He looked down at his hands. “Because I don’t know how to stay.”
There it was.
A truth, raw and bare, and somehow it still didn’t feel like enough.
I swallowed hard. “Is there someone back home?”
“What?”
“Is there someonewaitingfor you?”
His eyes flew to mine.
“Fifi—”
“Just say it,” I whispered, suddenly breathless. “Are you married? Engaged?”
And for one long, excruciating second—
He didn’t say anything at all.
He didn’t answer.
Not right away.
Not even with a half-hearted no, or a laugh, or a “what the hell, Fifi?” that would’ve at least cracked the tension hanging between us like a loaded wire.
Instead, his whole expression shifted.
The soft, open lines I’d glimpsed just moments ago snapped taut like someone had pulled a thread too tight. His eyes, those blue eyes that had spent the past few days tracing the shape of my smile, turned into something I couldn’t even recognize.
Hurt.
Guilt.
Something defensive that flashed so fast, I couldn’t pin it down.
His jaw clenched.
His nostrils flared.
And for a second, I thought he was going to yell. Not at me, exactly, but at the world. At whatever storm was clearly spinning behind his ribs.
But he didn’t.
He didn’t yell.
He didn’t swear or laugh or reassure me.
He just… turned.
Spun on his heel without a single word and walked out of the pantry like the floor wasn’t tilting under us both.
The door swung shut behind him with a quiet click.
