Elena's POV
The rain had been falling since morning.
Not a storm, but the steady, unrelenting kind of rain that made the world feel blurred around the edges. I'd been sitting in my apartment since dawn, wrapped in a blanket on the couch, staring at the door more often than I liked to admit.
By noon, I hated myself for checking the time every five minutes.
By late afternoon, I hated him for not knocking and just staying out there.
By early evening, I had grown to hate how much it bothered me.
I had insisted on this separation; I had been the one to leave. I was the one who said to myself:
No more confusing bonds. No more half-truths. No more being protected like a fragile thing.
But when you've been bound to someone in a way no normal human bond can replicate, silence is not peace. It's torment, the kind that presses behind your ribs and settles into the cracks of your lungs.
The rain kept falling, and the quiet kept tightening like a noose.
