SADE

A week after Kross and I had that brief moment, nothing had settled, not inside me and not around us either, and I kept waiting for the tension to either break or burn itself out, but nothing happened. It just stayed, quiet and heavy, the kind of pressure that doesn’t scream but makes your shoulders ache from carrying it too long.

He was still here.

Still showing up every other day, still finding reasons that sounded like business but felt personal, no matter how carefully he dressed them up, and I hated myself for noticing the patterns because noticing meant caring and caring meant vulnerability, something I had worked...