I closed my eyes. Yeah, it did.
“But that doesn’t change anything,” I said after a moment, my voice steadier now. “It still wouldn’t have worked. Not like that. Not now.”
“No,” Karl agreed.
I opened my eyes, frowning. “You’re not going to argue with me?”
“Oh, I could,” he said lightly. “But what would be the point?”
“That I’m right?”
“That you’retryingto be,” he corrected.
I let out a sigh. “Yeah, that.”
Karl’s voice softened. “It mattered. That’s the part you don’t get to minimise.”
“I’m not,” I said quickly.
“No,” he replied. “You’re just organising it.”
That hit closer than I liked, but I didn’t respond, because I didn’t have anything to argue with.
Karl let the silence stretch for a moment longer. “So…What are you going to do about it?”
I stared up at the ceiling again. I thought about the empty space beside me, the quiet… the absence of him.
“Nothing.”
Karl didn’t challenge it. “Fine. Then don’t.” He paused. “But don’t pretend that’s the same as it not mattering.”
I let out a slow breath. That was the part I couldn’t escape.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know.”
Another pause. “Your meeting is tomorrow morning? At the college?”
“Yes. Ten o’clock.”
“Then you should get some sleep. You need to be alert. And the next time we speak, you will have your life back.”
I loved the ring of confidence in his voice. I closed my eyes for a moment, letting his words settle.
My life back.
It should have felt reassuring, like something solid to return to. And part of me wanted to believe that, to be able to step back into it cleanly, neatly, as if the last two weeks had been something contained, something separate.
Nothing more than a deviation.
But even as I murmured, “Yeah… I will,” I knew that wasn’t true.
The life I was going back to—the one that had been waiting for me—didn’t quite fit the same way.
Not after Stefan.
Not after what I’d let myself feel.
I don’t just wantmorefrom life. I want somethingdifferent.