“You think I’m just reacting?” she asks.
“I think you’re discovering,” I say carefully. “And they’re loud about it.”
“And you’re not?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Because I’ve spent my whole life holding back.
Because if one of us pushes too hard, everything tips.
Because I’ve been waiting for something real instead of grabbing at something immediate.
Instead, I say, “Because I don’t want you to calm down around me by default.”
Her breath catches slightly.
That gets her attention.
“I don’t calm down by default,” she says.
“You do.”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Her scent shifts – not sharp, not flaring, but deeper. Warmer. That tonka bean undertone in mine pulling something steady from her.
She steps closer.
Not as boldly as she does with Kai.
Not as instinctively as she does with Sol.
But intentionally.
I feel it.
The alignment. The quiet.
Her shoulders lower. Her breathing evens.
“You make it quieter,” she says softly.
“I know.”
“And you don’t like that?”
I hold her gaze. “I don’t want to just be the absence of something for you.”
Her eyes flicker.
“You’re not,” she says, almost defensive.