This time, I didn't wait for him to come to me. I went to him. And that changed everything.
Two in the morning. The house was silent except for the distant hum of the refrigerator and her own ragged breathing. Elara stood outside Kairos's bedroom door, her hand raised to knock, frozen in that terrible space between wanting and doing.
She'd been lying in her own bed for three hours. Staring at the ceiling. Touching the fading marks on her neck that were almost gone now. Remembering the weight of his body, the certainty in his voice when he'd said I love you, the way her own confession had felt like jumping off a cliff.
Broken together, they'd agreed.
But she was tired of breaking. Tired of being passive. Tired of waiting for him to initiate, to claim, to decide.
Tonight, she would decide.
Her knuckles rapped against the wood. Three soft knocks that sounded impossibly loud in the quiet hallway.
Silence. Then footsteps. The door opened.
