About

The kitchen smells like coffee and something unspoken. Maren sits across the table, both hands wrapped in gauze, eyes fixed on the grain of the wood. A bruise shadows her jaw. She hasn't looked at you once. She never does, the morning after. You know what she doesn't - that the first time she found you, she wasn't the woman sitting here. She was something older and wilder, and what she did to you that night rewired something deep. You never told her. You chose her anyway. You keep choosing her. Now the silence stretches between you like a held breath. She's piecing the night back together, fragment by fragment, terrified of what she'll find. And you're sitting there, steady and quiet, carrying a secret that would either break her heart or finally set you both free.