The study felt smaller that night.
Not because the walls had moved, but because the space he usually occupied without noticing suddenly pressed back. Theon sat alone, the lamp casting a narrow circle of light over the desk, leaving the rest of the room in shadow.
Mia's words repeated themselves with unsettling clarity.
Not angrily.
Not accusingly.
Just… there.
I never asked you to comfort me.
He didn't feel anger.
That surprised him, briefly.
Anger would have been easier — a reaction he could set aside, compartmentalize, burn through and move on from. But what settled in instead was something heavier, quieter.
Hopelessness.
Not the dramatic kind. Not despair.
The kind that arrived when all reasonable options had been exhausted.
He leaned back in his chair, eyes closing for a moment longer than necessary. The house was quiet. The staff had withdrawn for the night. The systems ran smoothly without supervision.
Everything was under control.
Except the one thing he couldn't fix.
He had listened.
He had adjusted.
He had stepped back.
And still, she had heard deception where there had only been restraint.
Understanding, he realized, could not be taught through proximity alone.
He opened his laptop.
The glow of the screen cut through the dimness as he logged in, fingers moving automatically, habit guiding them where thought stalled. He pulled up listings — positions that aligned with her skills, her education, her limitations.
Safe roles.
Structured environments.
Places where oversight was transparent rather than silent.
He filtered carefully.
Not too close to his world.
Not too far from stability.
This was not abandonment.
It was preparation.
He read through descriptions, scanning benefits, locations, hours. He paused over one listing longer than the others — administrative, modest pay, predictable routine.
Predictable was good.
Predictable didn't hide danger behind politeness.
He bookmarked it.
Then another.
And another.
He did not rush.
If he was going to let her go, he would not do it carelessly.
That had never been his way.
He closed the laptop when the list felt complete, not because he was satisfied, but because there was nothing more he could do tonight.
He sat there for a while afterward, hands resting on the desk, eyes unfocused.
He did not regret what he had done.
But he felt the cost of it.
_____________________________________________
Mia slammed her door harder than necessary.
The sound echoed briefly in the corridor before fading into the house's familiar quiet. She paced her room, energy sharp and restless, replaying the confrontation again and again.
You still don't trust me.
It's all deception.
She told herself she had been right to say it.
She had asked for honesty. She had given it.
If he couldn't handle that, it wasn't her problem.
She dropped onto the bed and grabbed her phone, thumb moving automatically as she scrolled — a familiar refuge when emotions had nowhere else to go.
She searched for the bookstore.
Photos loaded slowly: shelves packed tightly together, handwritten recommendation cards, a small café tucked into the corner. Someone had posted a review earlier that day.
Quiet place. Hidden gem.
Her chest tightened.
I should've been there, she thought.
She scrolled further, irritation simmering beneath the surface.
Then her feed refreshed.
A headline caught her eye.
She froze.
It wasn't from the bookstore page. It wasn't even from someone she followed closely. It had slipped in through proximity — location-based, algorithmic, indifferent.
Her thumb hovered.
The headline was brief. Clinical.
A girl.
An alley.
An assault.
She tapped it.
The article loaded slowly, each second stretching thin.
Late evening.
Less frequented alley.
Suspected street thug.
No witnesses.
Her breath caught.
She read the details once.
Then again.
The street name felt familiar.
Too familiar.
Her stomach dropped as recognition settled in — not sudden, but creeping, undeniable.
That alley.
The one she had walked through without a second thought.
The one where she had dismissed the footsteps behind her.
The one where she had felt irritation, not fear.
The one she hadn't even remembered clearly until now.
Her phone slipped slightly in her grip.
She scrolled.
There were no photos. Just words. Facts laid out without sentiment. The girl had been alone. The incident had been quick. The aftermath… permanent.
Mia's heart began to pound, hard enough that she felt it in her throat.
It could have been me.
The thought arrived uninvited, sharp and cold.
She sat up slowly, phone clutched to her chest, the room suddenly too quiet.
Her mind replayed the afternoon with new clarity.
The narrowing street.
The fading noise.
The footsteps that matched her pace.
The hand on her arm.
The calm voice saying her name.
Her irritation.
Her anger.
Her certainty that nothing had been wrong.
She swallowed hard.
I didn't even notice.
That realization hit harder than the headline itself.
She hadn't been brave.
She hadn't been cautious.
She had been unaware.
Her pulse raced as another thought followed — slower, heavier.
They didn't explain because I didn't ask.
She stood, pacing again, the room suddenly unfamiliar.
He wasn't restricting me, a voice whispered in the back of her mind.
She pushed it away.
No.
He should have trusted her.
But the argument felt thinner now, less convincing than it had hours ago.
She picked up the phone again, scrolling through the article's comments — speculation, outrage, fear. Someone mentioned how dangerous the area had become lately. Someone else said it was common knowledge to avoid those shortcuts.
Common knowledge.
Mia let out a shaky breath.
I didn't know.
The words tasted wrong.
Ignorance didn't make danger disappear. It just delayed the moment you recognized it.
Her anger began to shift — not dissolve, but change shape.
Fear seeped in beneath it, cold and quiet.
She sank back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, the article still open on her phone.
For the first time since she had arrived under his roof, a different possibility pressed against her certainty.
Not that he had been right.
But that she had been wrong — about the scale of things, about the margins where danger lived.
And worst of all:
She realized she had survived the day not because she had earned freedom…
…but because someone else had noticed what she hadn't.
Across the house, Theon closed the study door and turned off the light.
He did not know what she had seen.
He only knew that the decision he was preparing for was no longer avoidable.
Hope, he had learned, could not exist where understanding refused to grow.
And understanding, once missed, rarely arrived on time.