CHAPTER 9
SOREN
Iremember exactly where she was standing.
Not generally. Not somewhere in the room. Exactly where.
Kitchen. Left side of the island. Back against the counter like she didn’t quite belong. Like she’d ended up in the center of something by accident and didn’t know how to leave without drawing attention to herself.
Everyone else was loud. Bodies pressed too close, voices overlapping, music bleeding through the walls like it was alive.
But she wasn’t part of it. She was just… there. Watching.
That’s what caught me. Not her face. Not at first, although that was certainly captivating when I did notice it.
People think attention is obvious. It’s not. Most of them don’t see anything. They just react. Perform.
She was quiet, though. Still. Tracking everything like she didn’t trust it. Like she was waiting for something to shift.
I leaned against the doorway and watched her for a while. Long enough to confirm it.
She wasn’t drunk enough to blur. Not careless, or dissolving into the room like everyone else. Contained. That’s rare.
Someone bumped into her shoulder, hard enough that it should have pissed her off. She just steadied herself. Adjusted. Didn’t make a scene. Didn’t even look at them.
I moved closer. Not directly.
Never directly.
Angle matters. Timing matters. People feel it when you approach head-on. They brace.
So I circled. Took a drink I didn’t want. Paused at conversations I wasn’t listening to. Let the room keep moving while I didn’t.
Then I stepped into her space like I’d always been there. “You look like you hate it here.”
She blinked, like I’d pulled her out of something. “I don’t hate it,” she said.
Soft. Careful. A small lie.
I tilted my head slightly. Watched her recalibrate. “You don’t belong here,” I said.
Her mouth parted, just a fraction.
People think flattery works. It doesn’t.
Recognition does.
And I see her.
“I do,” she said.
But there was hesitation now.
I leaned my shoulder against the counter beside her. Not touching. Close enough she’d feel it if she moved. “You’re watching everyone like you’re waiting for something to go wrong.”
Her breath caught. “I’m not,” she said.
Quieter this time. Another lie. Smaller.