Anything but the truth.
I couldn’t do it.
“Not seeing you,” I said.
The words felt as if I’d crossed a line.
Stefan stared at me, then inclined his head. “I see.”
My pulse raced, and I knew there was no taking it back.
“Would you like to go for a walk?”
The randomness of his suggestion took me by surprise. I glanced towards the window, to a Berlin where the sun shone and the hum of traffic felt quieter than usual.
“Sure, why not?”
Yeah, I’d crossed a line, and the fact that Stefan didn’t want to go there made my heart sink.
I should’ve kept my big mouth shut.
Stefan
“Why do Sundays feel different?” Kieran asked as we strolled along Kleiststraße.
“Because everywhere is closed, and I do mean everywhere. Germans feels that Sunday should be a day for spending with family or friends, not shopping.”
He sighed. “I like that. In the UK, we have Sunday trading, and it feels like any other day.” Then he lapsed into silence.
I found myself stealing glances at him as we walked, noticing the way he held himself now, more settled than he had been when we first met, but not entirely at ease. There was a tension still, subtle, almost imperceptible unless you were looking for it.
And Iwaslooking, because of what he’d said.
Not seeing you.
The words removed any possibility of misinterpretation. I’d turned them over in my head ever since we left the apartment. I’d examined them from every angle available to me. Not for meaning—that had been clear—but for implication.
He didn’t say it lightly.
I knew that. I’d seen the moment he chose not to step back.
I could have addressed it then. Stayed where we were. Asked the necessary questions. Defined the boundary.
That would have been the correct response, the responsible one.
Suggesting a walk have been instinctive, and not entirely about getting some fresh air. It had been about distance, not from Kieran but from the conversation.
Once something like that is spoken, it demands an answer.
And any answer I could have given in that moment would have done one of two things—encouraged it, or ended it.
I wasn’t prepared to do either, not yet. I needed to understand what, precisely, had shifted—in me. Kieran’s words had altered something. I’d felt it the moment he said them. The tightening in my chest, my stomach. My awareness of him.
I didn’t want to reduce what he was offering to something temporary simply because it would be easier to manage, so I stepped away from it. I wasn’t avoiding it, but simply ensuring that when I did come back to it, I’d do so with intent, not impulse or assumption.
I gave Kieran another glance. He was quieter now, more contained. I knew he’d interpreted my silence as disinterest, as distance, and he was probably drawing his own conclusions that were doubtless inaccurate. I let him.
For now.