Laura finished fixing her hair in front of the mirror. She had already been in her room for a few minutes. She needed the time alone, away from all the noise. The party was fun, but it was too crowded—almost as crowded as her head had been these past few days. Too many people. Too much noise. Everything was too much.

She took a deep breath. Throwing herself onto the bed for ten minutes seemed to have helped.

She opened the door to an empty hallway. She had barely taken two steps out, still holding the doorknob to close it behind her, when she heard another door open.

Her eyes lifted automatically.

Joshua.

He was walking out of Marcela’s room.

Their eyes met. For a moment, Joshua smiled purely on instinct when he saw her, but the smile died before it had the chance to fully form when he noticed Laura’s expression change. Her brow furrowed slightly.

Only then did he realize what this looked like.

His shirt was a little wrinkled—courtesy of Scott and the awkward hug of an uncoordinated giant, though Laura obviously had no way of knowing that.

Then her eyes drifted downward before she could stop them.

They landed on his pants.

The bulge was impossible to ignore.

Laura went completely still. It took her brain a second or two to connect that with the only place he could have just come from.

Marcela’s room.

It was two plus two.

Before either of them could say anything, the door behind Joshua opened again.

Marcela stepped out wearing a different dress from the one she’d had on earlier. Black. New. Her hair still fell entirely over one shoulder, and she looked stunning.

She smiled faintly when she found the two of them standing in the hallway, clearly surprised.

“Hey, Laura. Hiding from the party too?”

Laura smiled back. Small. Polite.

“A little tired today... And, by the way, that dress looks beautiful on you.”

“Thank you.”

Marcela smiled warmly.

For a few seconds, no one said anything. Laura’s eyes went back to Joshua, then Marcela, then Joshua again.

The pieces began falling into place on their own.

Something tightened strangely in her chest. It wasn’t anger. Much less jealousy.

It was... emptiness.

And it only made sense.

They had been married. There was still affection between them. Laura had seen it all week. They talked easily, laughed together, knew each other incredibly well.

And now Joshua was walking out of her room looking like that.

Of course.

The thought came so naturally it almost hurt.

Of course.

How could she have imagined anything else?

Joshua took a step toward her.

“Laura...”

She immediately looked up and smiled. Calm. Almost too gentle.

“I need to take care of something.”

A lie. She didn’t want to say anything in front of Marcela.

Joshua stopped. Laura gave a small nod, already preparing to walk down the hallway, but he managed to speak before she could.

“I need to talk to you later. It’s urgent.”

She looked at him for a moment, and Joshua’s stomach twisted.

Not because Laura had raised her voice. Not because she was angry.

Quite the opposite.

She was calm.

Exactly the kind of calm she became when she had already made up her mind about something.

The smile vanished from Joshua’s face. His chest tightened, and for a moment, his breath seemed to catch.

Then the realization hit him all at once.

She had gotten it completely wrong.

“Laura, can we do it now...?”

She made a small gesture with her hand, shutting the conversation down before he could even begin.

“Later. What I need to take care of is urgent too.”

She wasn’t okay.

Her eyes said something entirely different. They had lost that easy brightness that almost always appeared whenever they talked.

Laura glanced at Marcela and smiled again.

“Enjoy the party.”

Marcela blinked, unsure why those words sounded so much like a goodbye—or perhaps like confirmation of the suspicions she’d been collecting for days.

A chill ran through Joshua’s entire body.

“Laura...”

But she was already walking past them. Her perfume lingered in the hallway for another second before the sound of her footsteps disappeared down the stairs.

Joshua kept staring at the empty space where she had been, unable to move.

It wasn’t Laura’s fault.

It wasn’t Marcela’s fault.

But for the first time that night, Joshua was afraid. Afraid that because of one moment seen without the rest of the story, he had just lost someone before he had even realized how much of himself he was already finding in her.

Marcela turned back to him. Joshua was still standing in the hallway, not entirely motionless—the strange rise and fall of his chest made sure of that—but close. His eyes remained fixed on the spot where Laura had disappeared, as though his body had understood before his mind that something important had just slipped away.

She waited a few seconds.

“What is it?”

Joshua blinked, finally returning to the hallway. He looked at Marcela, and for a moment, it seemed like he might actually tell her the truth.

She knew that tiny delay. She knew the way he pressed his lips together when he needed to choose his words. She even knew the almost imperceptible movement of his right hand opening and closing at his side.

He was hiding something.

“Nothing.”

Marcela raised an eyebrow.

“Josh.”

“It’s work.”

The answer came too quickly.

She tilted her head slightly.

“Work?”

“Yeah.” His eyes drifted back toward the stairs. “I need to talk to her about some things with the company.”

Marcela said nothing. That didn’t explain the look on his face. Much less the way Laura had looked at the two of them.

“That urgent?”

Joshua rubbed the back of his neck.

“It became urgent just now.”

She watched the movement.

Something was wrong. Not necessarily with the story itself, but in the spaces between his words. Joshua had always been terrible at lying to her. Not because his face gave everything away, but because he tried too hard to simplify things.

When he told the truth, he explained.

When he hid something, he cut it short.

Marcela looked toward the stairs.

“She seemed weird.”

“She’s tired.”

“She didn’t look tired.”

Joshua took a deep breath.

“Cela...”

His tone wasn’t harsh.

That was worse.

It was a silent request for her not to keep going.

Something tightened inside Marcela’s chest. Not pain exactly—not yet—but something close to a warning.

Only seconds ago, everything had made sense. The shiver. The way he had looked at her. His answer about the dress. The way he had walked out of that room trying to hide his body’s reaction.

She had left the room believing she finally recognized the terrain again.

Now, suddenly, she recognized nothing.

“Okay,” she said slowly.

Joshua nodded, but he was already moving. He walked past her without going back into the room, reached the stairs, and took the first two steps at once.

Marcela remained alone in the hallway.

The smile she had still been carrying from the bedroom was completely gone. She looked at her open door, then the empty hallway, and finally the stairs.

Laura’s words returned to her in full.

Enjoy the party.

At the time, they had sounded almost like confirmation.

Now they sounded like something else.

But what?

Marcela stepped back into her room only to close the door. She kept one hand on the doorknob for a few seconds, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

The dress was perfect. So was her hair. Everything had happened exactly the way she had planned it.

And yet the feeling of victory had disappeared before she’d even had the chance to enjoy it.

Joshua was hiding something.

So was Laura.

And for the first time since Marcela had started believing there might still be a chance for the two of them, she realized she had stepped into a game without knowing all the rules.

Joshua practically went down the stairs without seeing the steps beneath his feet. People were still laughing, someone turned the music up, and outside, a group near the pool was cheering about something.

It seemed absurd that the party could keep going exactly as it had been.

As if the world hadn’t ended five minutes ago.

He crossed the room quickly, looking for only one person. He found Scott near the grill while Megan was saying something that had him laughing with that shy little smile that seemed to appear more and more whenever she was around.

“Scott.”

Joshua’s voice came out firmer than he intended.

His brother turned immediately. One look at Joshua’s face was enough to wipe the smile from his own.

“What happened?”

Joshua didn’t answer. He simply tilted his head slightly and started walking.

Scott didn’t ask. He just glanced at Megan.

“I’ll be right back.”

She nodded, immediately realizing something was wrong.

The two of them walked to a quieter spot near the ping-pong room, where there were fewer people and the music reached them muffled through the walls. Joshua dragged both hands over his face, took a deep breath, and tried to organize his thoughts.

He couldn’t.

“Shit hit the fan.”

Scott crossed his arms and waited, already anxious before he even knew what had happened. He knew his brother well enough to understand that interrupting him would only make Joshua lose his train of thought even more.

“Marcela asked me to help her with a dress.”

Scott nodded. “Okay.”

“So I went upstairs.”

Another silent nod.

Joshua rubbed the back of his neck. “She... did what she always used to do.”

Scott frowned for a second before it clicked. His eyes widened slightly.

“Oh...”

Joshua let out a completely humorless laugh. “Yeah.”

Scott scratched the back of his neck. “And...? Did you fall for it?”

Joshua looked down for a moment. “I left.”

Scott waited. He knew that still wasn’t the problem.

“When I walked out of the room...” Joshua closed his eyes, as if the rest of the sentence was too heavy to get out. “Laura was coming out of hers.”

Scott went completely still. His expression changed almost as quickly as he began putting the scene together in his head.

“She saw you coming out?”

Joshua nodded.

“And Marcela came out right behind me.”

Scott just stared at him. Joshua nodded again, and for a few seconds, his brother looked like he might actually explode from trying to process the scale of the disaster. He closed his eyes and brought one hand to his forehead.

“Josh...”

Joshua slowly exhaled. “I know.”

“She saw everything?”

Another nod.

A short, completely nervous laugh escaped Scott. There was nothing funny about it. It was pure desperation.

“Oh my God...”

They stood in silence for a few seconds before Scott finally asked, “Where is she?”

Joshua looked around for what had to be the thousandth time, as if Laura might simply appear.

“I don’t know.” His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “She said she had something to take care of... and that we’d talk later.”

Scott studied his brother for a few seconds. There was a restlessness in Joshua that he rarely let anyone see. He was standing still, but somehow looked ready to start running at any second.

“Did you explain?”

Joshua let out a bitter laugh.

“How? With Marcela standing right next to me and a fucking hard-on?”

Scott lowered his head, and this time a genuine laugh escaped him. The situation was so disastrous it had crossed over into absurdity.

And Joshua was right.

Marcela had been standing right there. Laura clearly wasn’t going to give him an opening, and Joshua would never expose a conversation that belonged to the two of them in front of someone else. Scott rubbed a hand over his face and tried to see the scene through Laura’s eyes. He knew his friend well enough to understand that, faced with what she had seen, she had almost certainly reached the worst possible conclusion.

“Okay.”

Joshua immediately looked up, waiting for him to continue.

“We find her first. That’s it. Then you talk.”

Joshua nodded without arguing.

Scott took two steps forward, already scanning the entire party, but stopped and turned back to his brother.

“Josh.”

“Hmm?”

“Where does she usually go when she needs to think?”

Joshua went completely still.

It sounded like such a simple question.

But he didn’t have an answer.

He realized, in that moment, that he knew how Laura liked her coffee. He knew exactly how she liked her toast, knew she made a face whenever her coffee was too sweet, and could recognize her perfume in any hallway.

But he didn’t know where Laura went when she needed to be alone.

Because most of the time, Laura didn’t go away.

She went to him.

Joshua was her safe place.

And tonight, he was the person she needed to get away from.

The guilt cut through his chest like a knife.

Scott saw his brother’s expression change and understood there would be no answer.

“Then we look everywhere.”

Joshua was already moving before Scott had even finished the sentence.

By the time Scott caught up with him, Joshua was already crossing the backyard. They split up without really needing to discuss it. Scott took the pool area while Joshua headed back inside.

The music made the floor vibrate beneath his feet. People were still dancing, someone was yelling because they’d lost at beer pong, and two strangers were arguing over what song to play next.

Everything carried on with absurd normalcy.

Joshua scanned the living room.

Nothing.

He went into the kitchen, where Sarah was still trying to convince Sunset that dishes did not, in fact, wash themselves. She looked up as soon as he walked in.

“Josh?”

“Have you seen Laura?”

Sarah thought for a moment.

“A few minutes ago.”

“Where did she go?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t see.”

Joshua thanked her with a quick gesture and was gone before Sarah could even ask why.

Outside, Scott moved between small groups of guests. He only stopped when he found someone he knew well enough, always asking the same way, trying to sound casual, like he was just making conversation.

“Hey... have you seen Laura recently?”

The answers were always more or less the same.

“Saw her near the kitchen.”

“She was going inside.”

“A little while ago.”

Nothing after that.

Every now and then, Scott looked for Joshua across the backyard. All it took was for their eyes to meet for each of them to immediately understand the other’s answer.

Nothing.

The minutes kept passing. Joshua checked the porch, the garage, the back of the house, even the front gate. He went back inside, climbed the stairs, and quickly scanned the hallway. Every door was closed.

For a second, he considered knocking on each one, but stopped himself. He wasn’t about to invade someone’s bedroom because of a gut feeling.

He went downstairs again.

Nearly forty minutes later, Scott found Joshua near the grill. Neither of them could hide their exhaustion anymore.

“Nothing?”

Joshua just shook his head.

Scott took a deep breath.

“She didn’t leave.”

Joshua looked up at him.

“How do you know?”

“Because she wouldn’t do that.”

Joshua fell silent, and Scott almost immediately recognized where his brother’s thoughts were going. He knew that expression. He knew exactly which memory Joshua was trying to run from.

“You’re not going through that again. Especially not with Laura. Come on, man. It’s Laura.”

Joshua thought about that for a few seconds.

It was true.

Laura would never ruin someone else’s party like that. She wouldn’t leave the house without saying anything, making everyone worry and turning Scott’s night into something else entirely.

She was still there.

Somewhere.

And while the two of them were practically organizing a search operation across the entire property, Laura was much closer than either of them realized.

On the first floor, inside Jennie’s bedroom.

Right next to Joshua’s room and practically beside the kitchen, where Sarah and Sunset were still trying to manage the chaos of the party.

The door slowly cracked open, and Laura poked just her head into the hallway. She looked one way, then the other.

Not a soul in sight.

She slipped back inside and closed the door again.

“No one?” Jennie asked.

Laura shook her head.

Matthew opened another beer.

“So they’re still looking for you.”

Laura took the bottle right out of his hand before he could even finish the sentence and took a long drink.

Then another.

And another.

Jennie watched the whole sequence before frowning.

“Laura...”

She lowered the bottle.

“Hmm?”

“You’re drinking way too fast.”

Laura smiled. Small. Almost automatic.

“I’m fine.”

No one answered.

Chad simply crossed his arms. Jin was still sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of the bed, watching Laura ever since she’d come into the room. She hadn’t asked a single question. When Laura sat down beside her, Jin simply wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close.

She was the one who finally broke the silence.

“No, you’re not, Laura. I know you.”

Without letting go of her friend, she held one hand out toward the others.

“Someone hand me another beer.”

Laura turned to look at her and tried to smile again.

This time, she couldn’t.

Jennie sat down on the floor beside them. She and Jin knew Laura well enough to understand that pushing her wouldn’t get them anywhere. Laura was a fortress. She rarely cried, and even more rarely allowed anyone to see when something had truly gotten to her.

“What happened?” Jennie asked.

Laura stared at the bottle for a few seconds, slowly turning the glass between her fingers.

“Nothing.”

Matthew sighed.

“Laura... even I’m starting to freak out, and I don’t know a damn thing about the gossip.”

A small laugh escaped her despite herself, and she shook her head.

“Seriously, guys. I don’t want to talk about it. Not right now. Let’s just drink.”

Jennie didn’t push. She simply took Laura’s hand for a moment and gave it a gentle squeeze. No questions. No attempt to force an explanation out of her.

Laura squeezed back.

That was enough to say thank you.

Meanwhile, Joshua had stopped paying attention to the party altogether. The conversations around him had become nothing but noise, and people walked past without him really seeing them. All he wanted was to send everyone home, empty the entire house, and look for Laura without having to push through dozens of people in every room.

Scott came back once again.

“Nothing.”

Joshua closed his eyes.

For the first time that night, he felt truly afraid.

Not of an argument. Not of a difficult conversation. Not even of what Laura might say when he finally found her.

He was afraid of not finding her.

Of going through the same thing all over again.

Another twenty minutes passed, and the beer in Jennie’s room finally ran out. Matthew looked at the empty cooler and grimaced.

“We’re screwed.”

Jennie huffed. “We’re gonna have to go out there.”

Chad immediately looked at Laura.

“Want to wait a little longer?”

She lowered her eyes to the empty bottle between her hands and took a deep breath.

“No. You can go get more. Just don’t announce our existence to the entire house.”

Jennie got up along with Jin and the guys. The four of them stared at the cooler as if they’d just been handed a mission of international importance.

“We’re filling this thing up, and if we have to, we’ll stay in here with you until tomorrow night, Laura.”

A faint smile appeared on her face.

“Thank you.”

The four of them walked toward the door. Jin grabbed the handle, slowly turned it, and poked her head into the hallway first.

Still empty.

She took the first step out.

At the exact moment Jennie started to follow her, the door next to them opened.

Joshua.

He had gone to his own room hoping a few minutes alone might help him clear his head.

It hadn’t.

He stopped the second he saw the four of them coming out of Jennie’s room carrying the cooler. Jin froze too. Jennie appeared right behind her and, the moment she noticed Joshua, instinctively tried to fill the remaining space in the doorway.

The two of them stood practically shoulder to shoulder.

A human barricade.

A human barricade made up of two women barely over five feet tall, but an attempt nonetheless.

Joshua frowned. For a second, he didn’t understand.

Then he tried to look between them.

Jin subtly shifted to one side.

Jennie moved to the other.

Joshua tilted his head.

They followed.

Under any other circumstances, it might have been funny.

But it didn’t work.

Joshua saw a beer bottle first.

Then a hand.

And finally, Laura sitting on Jennie’s bed.

That was when he remembered the one room in that house Laura had chosen before when she needed somewhere quiet. The room almost no one ever thought to check because Jennie was rarely in it.

Of course.

Jennie’s room.

Joshua stood frozen in the hallway for a few seconds, as if he still needed to convince himself that she was really there.

Scott had been right.

Laura had never left.

She had just disappeared.

His eyes found hers immediately. Laura was still sitting on the bed, the bottle between her hands, and Joshua’s heart finally began to slow down.

She was okay.

Physically, at least.

For now, that was enough.

Laura looked up at him.

No smile. No surprise.

Just exhaustion.

Joshua took a deep breath and stayed exactly where he was. He didn’t try to enter the room. He didn’t move any closer.

“Can I talk to you... now?”

Silence took over the room.

Laura glanced at Jennie, then Jin, before looking back at Joshua.

She gave a small nod.

“Okay.”

She slowly got up from the bed and looked at the four of them, still standing in the middle of their failed operation, holding the cooler and trying to figure out what exactly was happening.

“I’ll be back.”

Jennie simply nodded.

Matthew glanced discreetly at Chad. Chad looked at Jin. Jin looked at Laura.

No one dared say a word.

All four of them understood at the same time that this wasn’t a conversation that needed an audience.

Laura walked past Joshua. He stepped aside and waited for her to leave first. Only then did he follow her, without saying a single word.

The door closed.

The five seconds of silence left behind in the room felt much longer.

Matthew was the first one who couldn’t take it anymore.

“Is someone gonna explain...?”

Jennie picked up the cooler.

“Later. Right now, we’re getting beer.”

Jin nodded.

“And letting them talk.”

Laura left the room first and didn’t wait for Joshua. Only once she was already in the hallway did he start walking behind her. Neither of them said a word as they slowly made their way upstairs. With every step, the music from the party grew more distant. The voices, the laughter, the clinking of glasses—everything seemed to belong somewhere else.

Laura crossed the hallway without hesitation and stopped in front of the second-floor living room. Joshua recognized the place before she even turned the handle.

It was here.

The same room where they had talked for hours, where they had laughed, and where, without either of them planning it, their first different kind of kiss had happened.

Laura stepped inside. Joshua followed and closed the door behind them without locking it. Silence filled the entire room.

She walked past the cooler, grabbed a beer, and went to the window. Leaning against the sill, she looked down at the lights of the party below. Sarah had done an amazing job, once again. And they, as usual, seemed equally talented at finding a way to ruin everything in the middle of something incredible.

Joshua stayed near the door, as though he wasn’t sure how close he was still allowed to get. Time seemed to stop moving. He just needed to figure out how to tell her nothing but the truth.

Laura was the one who finally broke the silence.

“What was so urgent?”

Her voice was calm.

Too calm.

Joshua took a deep breath.

“You’re what’s urgent.”

A small, humorless smile touched her lips as she kept looking out the window.

“I thought it was work.”

She took a sip of her beer while Joshua walked over to the cooler, still respecting the distance between them. He knew Laura well enough to understand that forcing any kind of closeness right now would only make things worse.

He lowered his eyes for a moment and gave a faint, joyless smile.

“I lied to Marcela. I figured you didn’t want a scene.”

Laura simply nodded.

“I figured.”

Silence returned. Despite everything, she noticed the care he had taken not to reveal anything in front of Marcela. For a moment, she wondered what exactly this was. Why did the two of them even need to talk about it? And more importantly, why was it consuming her so completely?

Joshua took a step forward.

“Laura...”

She turned to face him and raised one hand, resting her back against the windowsill. It was a small gesture, almost imperceptible, but enough to make him stop immediately.

Laura took a deep breath.

“I spent the entire walk up here trying to decide which question I wanted to ask first. But...”

Her eyes dropped to the bottle, slowly turning the glass between her fingers.

“None of them change what I saw. And I don’t even know why it affected me this much, or why we need to talk about it. We’ve always had everything so figured out. Ever since the day we kissed, we knew what role we had in each other’s lives. I don’t fall in love with anyone, and she was the only person who ever got you to put a ring on your finger. You’ve said that yourself.”

Joshua felt his chest tighten, but he didn’t interrupt.

Laura was looking in his direction without really seeing him. Her eyes were distant, already glossy, and she was visibly fighting to keep it from going any further.

The walls couldn’t come down completely.

“I saw you coming out of her room. And what’s wrong with that? You were married. I’ve always known that. I’ve always been there. Then I saw her come out right behind you. I just want to understand why we’re feeling bad about something that used to be completely normal in our lives.”

She took a deep breath.

“I saw how wrinkled your shirt was.”

Joshua closed his eyes.

Laura had to gather the courage to finish. When she spoke again, her voice faltered for the first time.

Barely.

But it did.

“And... I saw that your body still reacted to her. I think I just never noticed things like that before because I was too busy running away from something, thinking I was doing the right thing. I chose not to see the intimacy between you two these past few days as anything other than what it had always been. And now I understand why.”

Joshua didn’t answer immediately.

Laura wasn’t making anything up. She was telling him exactly what she had seen.

And all of it was true.

It just wasn’t the whole truth.

He breathed slowly.

“Can I tell you exactly what happened?”

Laura took a few seconds before answering, but eventually nodded.

“Okay. Maybe I don’t want to know, but I do.”

Joshua started from the beginning. He told her that Marcela had asked him to help with the dress; that she had closed the door; that she had taken off her dress and he had immediately understood what she was doing. He told her he had tried to keep his distance, that he had zipped up the dress, that Marcela had moved closer, and that her perfume had brought back memories he hadn’t expected to feel. He told her his body had reacted before he could control it and that, the next moment, he had left.

He hid nothing.

He downplayed nothing.

He didn’t try to make himself look better than he had been.

When he finished, silence returned.

Laura stood still for a few seconds before turning back toward the window, trying to compose herself after hearing everything she hadn’t expected to hear.

She stayed that way until she quietly asked:

“Did you want to stay?”

Joshua answered before he could even think about it.

“No.”

She gave an almost imperceptible nod, as though she had expected that answer. Then she asked something else, still without looking at him.

“But part of you did.”

Joshua closed his eyes.

That question was infinitely harder, because the answer didn’t fit into a yes.

Much less a no.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low.

Honest.

“My body remembered who she used to be.”

Laura finally turned her head. Their eyes met, and Joshua held her gaze without looking away.

“But I was the one who chose who she isn’t anymore.”

Laura’s eyes began to shine.

Not with anger. Not exactly with jealousy.

It was pain.

She believed him.

And that was exactly the problem.

Because she knew Joshua was telling the truth, and somehow that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Quite the opposite.

Laura took a deep breath and tried to speak.

Nothing came out.

She tried again, and this time she managed, her voice barely more than a broken whisper.

“Then why does it hurt so much?”

Joshua went completely still.

There was no ready answer. No quick argument. No explanation that could erase the image she had seen.

For the first time that night, he realized that sometimes the truth wasn’t enough to mend a heart.

And that terrified him.

Laura set the empty bottle on the windowsill and walked over to the small minibar. She opened it and bent down to grab another beer.

That was when Joshua finally moved.

His steps were slow, unhurried. Laura heard them without looking.

She would recognize those footsteps anywhere.

When she straightened again, she was holding two bottles.

She looked up.

Joshua was close.

Very close.

Laura silently held one of the beers out to him. Joshua took it, and their fingers brushed for a second.

He took a deep breath.

“Do you really want to know the truth, Laura?”

She kept looking at him. Her eyes were already red from fighting so hard to keep the tears from falling. Slowly, she raised her eyebrows slightly and nodded.

Joshua lowered his head for a moment.

A small smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

That same smile that always made Laura forget whatever train of thought she had been trying to follow.

When he looked at her again, there was no going back.

“The truth... is that I’m completely crazy about you.”

The world stopped.

Laura simply stopped.

The air vanished from her lungs. Her hands were still wrapped around the bottle, but she could no longer feel the cold glass against her fingers.

All she could do was look at him.

At that subtle smile.

At those light eyes.

At the man who had just torn apart every certainty she had spent her entire life building.

Her chest tightened. Her heart beat so fast it almost hurt.

She needed to breathe.

She needed to.

But she seemed to have forgotten how.

Joshua took another half step closer and spoke almost in a whisper.

“I’ve spent days trying to convince both of us that this wasn’t happening. And I think you have too.”

He gave a faint, humorless smile.

“I couldn’t do it. The more I tried, the more I thought about you. Your scent, your body, your laugh.”

Laura remained completely still.

Joshua took a deep breath.

“So I stopped running.”

The silence that followed seemed to fill every inch of the room.

Laura looked at the bottle in her hand.

Then at his.

She raised hers and gently tapped it against Joshua’s, as if making a toast.

The sound of glass echoed through the room.

She still hadn’t found a single word.

Maybe because any word would have been too small.

Then she slowly walked past him.

Joshua only turned his head to follow her. Laura reached the door and stopped with her hand on the handle.

She didn’t look back.

She opened it.

Walked out.

The door closed softly behind her.

Joshua remained alone in the room, staring at it. After a few seconds, a smile appeared without him even realizing it.

Small.

Almost imperceptible.

For the first time that night, he felt relieved.

Because there were finally no secrets left.

Now Laura could run from him. She could deny it, be angry, need time.

But she could never again believe that the question was Marcela.

The question was Laura herself.

And for the first time since all of this had begun, Joshua knew exactly what his goal was.

Not to convince Laura to be with him.

Not to make her forget that night.

But to show her, for however many days it took, that falling in love had never been the problem.

The problem had always been her fear of finding out that she was loved too.