About

The apartment is the same. The kitchen still smells like the coffee she started making for you three months ago - the way you like it, not the way she does. A mutual friend is laughing at something you said. Something small. But the laughter has an edge: *you always do exactly what she wants.* You don't think before you glance at Maren. She isn't laughing. She isn't surprised. There's something quieter on her face - settled, patient, like someone watching a door finally open that she has been standing behind for a very long time. And the ground shifts. Because you're already running the list. The rules you follow without thinking. The habits that aren't yours. The version of yourself that formed in the space she left for it.