Light presses gently against her eyelids.
Not harsh.
Diffuse.
Filtered.
Laura shifts slightly before she opens her eyes.
There is warmth beneath her cheek.
Solid.
Steady.
Not a pillow.
Her brow tightens faintly.
That's wrong.
She inhales.
Air is cooler than her room would be.
Thinner.
Carrying the scent of grass.
Her eyes open slowly.
Blur first.
Green.
Sky.
Branches overhead.
She does not move immediately.
Her mind takes a second too long to assemble context.
Park.
Bench.
Night.
Axel.
Her head is still resting against his shoulder.
Her body registers the angle.
The proximity.
The fact that she is upright — but not independently.
She straightens quickly.
Too quickly.
Her vision tilts for half a second.
Stabilizes.
Axel is awake.
He does not startle.
Does not comment.
He looks down at her with quiet assessment.
"Morning."
His voice is low.
Unbothered.
Like this is not unusual.
It is deeply unusual.
Laura blinks.
Her thoughts move slower than they should.
"Morning."
Her voice sounds distant to her own ears.
Slightly rough.
She clears her throat automatically.
Composure assembling by reflex.
The park is different in daylight.
Open.
Ordinary.
Joggers passing in the distance.
Birds moving through trees.
Normal life resumed.
She scans quickly.
Calculates.
They stayed.
All night.
The conclusion lands in her chest.
Not panic.
Just weight.
"You stayed."
The words slip out before she can edit them.
Axel shrugs lightly.
"Yeah."
No explanation.
No justification.
As if the choice required none.
Laura's mind attempts reconstruction.
What time did rehearsal end?
When did dusk arrive?
How long were they sitting before she…
She stops the calculation midstream.
The more pressing fact remains:
She slept.
Outside.
Leaning on someone.
Without deciding to.
Her hands move instinctively to smooth her hair.
Adjust posture.
Reclaim vertical alignment.
Mask reassembling.
She does not look at Axel again immediately.
She does not know what expression she might find.
Concern?
Fatigue?
Judgment?
He offers none of those.
He simply stands slowly.
Stretching his shoulder once, discreetly.
As if holding her weight overnight was not inconvenience.
Laura stands as well.
Her legs feel heavier than expected.
Not sore.
Just slow.
The morning light feels brighter than it should.
Sharper.
More revealing.
She glances at him finally.
"You could've gone home."
It is not accusation.
Not gratitude.
Just observation.
Axel meets her gaze evenly.
"I didn't need to."
No elaboration.
No martyrdom.
Just fact.
The simplicity unsettles her more than anything else.
He did not stay because she asked.
He stayed because he chose to.
Without negotiation.
Without recognition.
Laura inhales slowly.
The world feels clearer than last night.
But something is different.
The weight in her chest remains.
Less acute.
More real.
She is not just tired.
She crossed something.
And she does not know what it means.
Morning sun filters through branches above them.
Laura looks at the bench.
At the space where she sat.
At the imprint where she must have leaned.
She does not remember falling asleep.
But she knows she did.
And Axel did not leave.
For someone who built identity around self-reliance—
That realization lands deeper than exhaustion.