The rest of the day slipped through my fingers like water.
One moment it was afternoon, the next the light outside my window had shifted, turning soft and dull, like the world was slowly dimming. I stayed home the entire time, buried between the covers with books stacked around me, pretending words could drown out thoughts.
It worked.
At first.
I let myself sink into stories that weren’t mine. Other people’s chaos. Other people’s heartbreak. I read until my eyes burned and my back ached, until my mind finally slowed down enough to stop replaying his voice, his touch, the way he looked at me like he already knew all my weaknesses.
Then I turned a page.
And there it was.
A scene I shouldn’t have read. A sentence that should’ve meant nothing.
But suddenly it wasn’t the man in the book
