I waited for a sound.
For anything that told me she understood.
But there was only the faint shift of cutlery against porcelain.
The small, careful movements she made when she was still processing something internally.
I couldn’t see her expression. I couldn’t read her face. I could only hope I wasn’t leaking too much of myself into the space between us.
Because Tess always absorbed things.
I stood slowly from the table.
The chair legs scraped faintly against the floor, the sound sharper than I intended in the quiet room.
My hands found the edge of the table again out of habit, grounding myself for a moment longer than necessary.
Anger was there.
But deep. Pressed down so tightly it became something heavier than rage.
At myself.
At Rafael.
At the way I had stepped into something I didn’t understand and shattered it without meaning to.
I pushed the feeling down and turned away from the dining room slowly.
My fingers lifted, trailing along the edge of the table until they found air instead of wood. Then the familiar wall beside it.
I followed it.
Step by step.
Counting unconsciously in my mind.
Left turn ahead after six steps.
Then the slight dip in the floor where the marble shifted near the hallway.
Then the echo change that meant open space near the staircase.
I was almost at the hallway when something inside me shifted.
A small, defiant spark that refused to settle into quiet obedience.
I stopped.
One hand still on the wall.
My breath steadying, then tightening again.
I wasn’t going to go to my room.
Not like this.
Because if I did, I knew exactly what would happen.
