or maybe already far away—
was the male fate had chosen for her.
Her second chance.
And she didn’t even know his name.
--
The days that followed were torture in slow motion.
No matter how hard Iva tried, she couldn’t rip him out of her thoughts.
The stranger with the dark eyes haunted her waking moments, slipping into every crack of silence, every pause between breaths. She would be scrubbing pans at the sink, hands moving automatically, and suddenly she would feel him—those eyes again, that impossible gravity, the way her world had tilted the moment he spoke.
At night, it was worse.
She dreamed of him.
Not soft dreams. Not kind ones.
Dreams where his gaze burned into her, where that invisible thread pulled tight until her chest ached, where she reached for him and woke up gaspi
