I don’t feel the room until I stop writing.
Up until that moment, everything is just… movement. Thought bleeding into words, words into sentences, sentences into something that feels like it belongs to me again instead of something I have to force into shape. My fingers ache from how hard I’ve been pressing into the keys, my shoulders tight, my breath uneven, but there’s something underneath it that feels almost like relief.
Like I’ve been holding something inside my chest for too long and finally let it out.
I don’t remember the last time I felt like this.
Not since before everything.
Not since before him.
The apartment is quiet when I finally pause, the cursor blinking back at me like it’s waiting, like it knows I’m not actually done, just catching up to myself.
The front door opens.
The sound drags through me slower than it should, like I’m still halfway inside whatever I just wrote, like I have to pull myself back piece by piece.
They’re home.
I don’t look up straight away. I finish the sentence I’m on. Then another. Then my fingers still.
I close the laptop slowly, my hands lingering on it for a second as I take a breath that feels deeper than anything I’ve taken all day, my head still slightly fuzzy, my emotions sitting too close to the surface.
When I look up, Elijah is already watching me.
“You’re done?” he asks quietly.
I nod, still a little dazed.
“I think so.”
His gaze moves over my face, taking something in that I can’t quite place, something I don’t have the energy to question right now.
“I’m heading out,” he says. “I’ll be back later.”
And then he leans down.
His lips brush my cheek.
Soft.
Careful.
Too careful.
“I love you.”
That’s when something in my chest tightens. Not when he said he was leaving. Not when he walked over.
Here.
In the way it feels like he’s holding something back from me. My hand moves before I think about it, fingers fisting into the front of his shirt, pulling him back toward me before he can straighten.
“Elijah…”
My voice comes out softer than I expect, rougher, like there’s something underneath it I don’t quite want to name.
I tilt my face up toward him, closing the space between us, needing more than that careful distance, needing something real, something grounding.
