Scarves tossed without care. Sneakers kicked beneath the couch.
A half-drunk coffee mug left behind like an afterthought.
Careless. Loud. Wrong.
Beneath it all, Arden’s order tried to breathe.
He could see the contrast—her signature in every effort to impose control.
The neatly folded blanket among the disarray.
Books aligned with careful precision.
He approached the coffee table, fingers brushing the surface.
The journal.
Untouched. A boundary line.
Sacred.
He didn’t open it.
He wanted to.
But no?—
He wouldn’t violate her privacy. Not really.
He respected her too much. Just enough to leave a mark, not a scar.
Instead, he shifted it. Just slightly.
A whisper she wouldn’t miss.
A message only she would hear:
I see you.
He moved deeperinto the apartment, reading the story she’d written in textures and quiet cues.
The way she organized her closet.
The subtle repetition in how she arranged things.
It wasn’t perfection.
It was survival.
A woman layering order over the ruins of something shattered.
But she didn’t need more walls.
She needed someone who understood how to walk through fire without flinching.
Someone who wouldn’t fear her flame.
Someone like him.
