And then—
What do I do?
Elizabeth let out a quiet breath through her nose, her gaze dropping to the floor.
That was new.
Unsettlingly so.
She moved away from the window and sat down slowly on the edge of her bed, her hands coming together loosely between her knees, fingers interlacing, then separating again as though they could not quite settle either.
This was not just about him.
The thought came reluctantly.
She did not welcome it.
She let it sit anyway.
She had known.
Not about today. Not about the exact hour or the promise made in that exact form.
But she had known him.
The way he worked. The way he disappeared into things that demanded precision and gave nothing back until he forced himself to step away. The way time, for him, did not always behave the way it did for other people.
She had known that.
Elizabeth looked down at her hands, her thumb pressing lightly against the edge of her palm.
She could have sent a message.
The thought was small. Practical.
And irritating.
She could have.
A single line in the middle of the day.
Hope you remember you are still taking Mia out?
It would have taken seconds.
It might have changed everything.
Her jaw tightened slightly as she tried to argue with herself that it was not her responsibility.
And yet—
She exhaled again, longer this time.
Elizabeth leaned back slightly, her hands shifting behind her for support before she stilled again.
They could not keep doing this.
The thought did not come with anger this time. It came with a kind of quiet clarity that settled in slowly, without resistance.
