The sunlight crept into the apartment the way memories do - quietly, without permission, finding their way into places I thought I'd sealed off. Thin bands of gold slipped through the blinds and stretched across the hardwood floor, fractured and uneven, like something beautiful that had already been broken. I stood by the window longer than I should have, watching the city wake up beneath me, letting the warmth brush against my skin as if it could dissolve the tension coiled beneath my ribs.
It didn't.
Outside, life moved with an ease I had never quite mastered. Cars glided along the streets in orderly lines, horns flaring occasionally but never lingering. Pedestrians walked with purpose, their steps confident, deliberate -people who knew where they were going, or at least pretended to. Somewhere below, a dog barked sharply, impatient at the length of its leash. The sound echoed between buildings and disappeared just as quickly.
Everything felt painfully normal. I mean, normal for Silas Blackwood.. Me - Silas - am not too fond of calm, of normal.
And yet, beneath that calm, something inside me remained restless, alert, as if waiting for a sound only I could hear. A storm gathering behind clear skies. I had learned to recognize that feeling over the years - to distrust stillness when it lingered too long. Calm was never permanent. It was a pause. A breath held too tightly.
I stepped away from the window and let my hands trail along the kitchen counter, grounding myself in the familiar texture of polished wood. The apartment was immaculate - deliberately so. Shelves aligned with mathematical precision. Books arranged chronologically, their spines uncreased, their order untouched. Every mug in its designated place, every surface cleared of clutter.
Order had always been my refuge.
Predictability meant control. Control meant safety.
Or so I told myself.
Mornings were supposed to follow a rhythm - wake, brew coffee, skim the paper, exist quietly. For years, I had perfected that routine, sculpted it into something dependable. But lately, the rituals felt heavier, as though each step carried an invisible weight. The silence no longer soothed me. It pressed in, thick and watchful.
I reached for the kettle, filling it with water, when my phone vibrated against the counter.
The sound was sharp. Intrusive.
I froze.
For a moment, I considered ignoring it. Letting it buzz itself into silence. Most notifications meant nothing - news alerts, emails, reminders I'd set for myself weeks ago and forgotten. But something in my chest tightened instinctively, a reflex I hadn't trained myself out of.
I turned the phone over.
Nyx.
Nyxara Dorne.
The name alone unsettled me.
I stared at the screen, acutely aware of the irrationality of the moment. It was just a message. A single word from someone I pretended not to think about too often. And yet, my pulse stuttered, my breath catching as if the air had thinned around me.
One message from her was never just one message.
I didn't open it immediately. Instead, I unlocked the screen and scrolled - backwards, through fragments of conversations that had never truly ended. Messages layered with implication, restraint, tension. Nyx never wasted words. She spoke with precision, her sentences sharp but never careless, laced with an unpredictability that kept me perpetually off balance.
She didn't communicate like anyone else I'd known.
She didn't linger where comfort was easy.
With Nyx, there was always something beneath the surface - a current you couldn't see but felt immediately, tugging at your footing. She had a way of reframing things, of forcing you to confront angles you hadn't considered. I had always prided myself on logic, on clarity. Nyx challenged that - not by opposing me outright, but by quietly shifting the ground beneath my assumptions.
I set the phone down without opening the message.
Cowardly, perhaps. Or cautious. The line between the two had blurred where she was concerned.
The kettle whistled softly as it heated, pulling me back into the room. I busied myself with the mechanics of making coffee, letting the familiar motions steady me. The rich aroma filled the apartment, curling through the air like an anchor. I inhaled deeply, clinging to the small comfort of routine.
I carried the cup to the kitchen table and sat, wrapping my hands around the ceramic mug, feeling its warmth seep into my palms. Steam rose lazily, dissipating into the air. I watched it as my thoughts wandered - inevitably - to the nature of choice.
Some people made mistakes by accident.
Others made them deliberately.
Nyx was the kind of person whose choices left marks - subtle, precise, irreversible. She didn't crash into lives loudly. She reshaped them quietly, leaving fingerprints in places you didn't notice until it was far too late.
I remembered the first time I had realized that.
It had been over something trivial - a project we'd collaborated on, a minor disagreement about direction. I had dismissed her suggestion instinctively, resistant to the unfamiliar approach she proposed. But when the project succeeded - effortlessly, decisively - I understood something then that unsettled me deeply.
She had been right.
Not loudly. Not triumphantly.
Quietly.
That quiet certainty disturbed me more than any argument could have. It wasn't just that she challenged me. It was that I wanted her to. That I leaned into the discomfort instead of retreating from it.
The clock on the wall ticked steadily, each second marking time with cruel indifference. I tried to focus on the ordinary - the hum of the refrigerator, the distant rhythm of traffic, the way sunlight slowly migrated across the floor.
But my awareness kept circling back to her.
Nyx.
Her absence felt tangible, as if she occupied the space without being physically present. A pressure. A suggestion. I had the distinct, unsettling sense that this quiet would not last. That soon, she would arrive - figuratively or otherwise - and the fragile balance I clung to would shatter.
I leaned back in my chair and took a sip of coffee. It tasted bitter, grounding. Real.
I thought about love.
I had always believed love was meant to be gentle - a quiet agreement between two people who respected boundaries, who understood the value of restraint. Love, in my mind, was stability. Mutual care. A soft landing.
But Nyx made love feel like a challenge.
With her, it promised exhilaration, yes - but also disruption. Danger. The kind that forced you to question your own moral compass in the quiet hours before dawn. She blurred lines I preferred to keep distinct. She asked questions I wasn't ready to answer.
Outside, the city carried on, oblivious to my internal unrest. I watched a street cleaner move methodically along the sidewalk, his rhythm steady, purposeful. There was something sacred in that simplicity. A certainty I envied.
I wanted that certainty.
Instead, I had her.
A storm wrapped in calm. A force you admired from a distance but knew better than to approach.
And yet - I had approached anyway.
Willingly.
Foolishly.
The phone vibrated again.
This time, I picked it up.
The message was brief. Characteristically so.
We need to talk.
My chest tightened.
Three words. Nothing dramatic. Nothing urgent.
And yet, they carried the weight of inevitability.
I stared at the screen for a long moment before locking the phone and setting it face down on the table. The silence that followed felt heavier than before, charged with meaning.
I finished my coffee slowly, leaving the cup half-empty. For a moment, I allowed myself to sit there, suspended in stillness. I told myself it was just a morning. Just another ordinary day.
But deep down, I knew better.
The calm was a veneer - thin, fragile. Behind it, choices were forming, waiting to fracture everything I thought I understood about love, about morality, about myself.
And I couldn't bring myself to stop it.... or could I?