And unsettling in its own way.
In the afternoon, Erin texts me a photo: her and Dmitri by the river, the city behind them, both smiling in a way that looks earned.
ERIN
Thank you for coming yesterday
It meant a lot to Kieran
I stare at the photo for longer than I mean to. Erin looks happy. Settled. Like someone who’s built a life she chose.
I want that. Not her life specifically, but that certainty. That grounded contentment.
For years, I thought certainty meant knowing exactly what would happen next. Now I think it means trusting yourself to handle whatever does.
I type back something warm but brief.
Nothing from him.
I finish my lab report. I email my advisor. I pack a box with things I won’t need again until fall. Aubrey asks if I want Thai for dinner. We eat on the floor and watch a forgettable comedy, our backs against the bed frame, cartons balanced between us.
At some point, she glances at my phone on the floor.
“All good?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
She waits.
“I think it’s…intentional,” I add.
Aubrey tilts her head. “The silence?”
“Yes.” I pause, testing the thought before I let it stand. “Months ago, this would have felt different.”
“How?”
I consider it.
Back then, his attention had weight. Direction. It pulled me in and rearranged things before I realized what was happening. He didn’t just act, he advanced. He decided the pace and the closeness, and I kept adjusting around him, mistaking intensity for intention.
But this isn’t that.
He isn’t reaching. Not reframing. Not quietly redefining what we are to each other without my consent.
“It feels like space,” I say finally. “Like he’s letting me decide what comes next.”
My shoulders drop when I say it. That’s how I know it’s true.
Aubrey studies me. “That’s good?”
I check in with myself. Not in theory. In my body.
“Yes,” I say slowly. “Really good.”
That night, I lie awake longer than usual, staring at the ceiling fan as it ticks through its uneven rotation. Mythoughts don’t spiral the way they used to. They drift. Settle. Reorganize.
He asked one question. He didn’t build on it. He didn’t collect information and turn it into leverage.
