"Did you two fight?"
The question hangs in the air between us, heavy and unanswerable.
Fight?
It feels too small, too ordinary for what has happened. A fight is something you recover from. A fight is a slammed door, a raised voice, a night spent on opposite sides of the bed with your back turned. What I have is something else entirely—something that has settled into my bones like a sickness I can't name.
I don't answer. My gaze stays fixed on the garden beyond the glass wall, buried in snow, still and cold. The white stretches endlessly, untouched, pristine—a blank canvas that holds nothing but silence.
The world outside is frozen.
And so am I.
Sum's voice breaks through the silence, gentle but insistent, pulling me back to the present.
"Ellis. Why aren't you saying anything?"
I feel his eyes on me, patient, waiting.
I take a slow breath. Finally, I shift my gaze to him. My voice comes out flat, hollowed out by exhaustion and days of silence.
