The afternoon didn’t arrive with fanfare or warning. It simply… settled heavily,like a room someone had forgotten to turn the lights on in.
Layla perched on the very edge of Elias’s bed, legs dangling, bare feet brushing the cool hardwood floor. She still wore his shirt—one of the soft, charcoal-gray button-downs he favored. The sleeves were rolled several times, the hem falling mid-thigh. It smelled like cedarwood, clean cotton, and something unmistakably him—quiet strength wrapped in restraint.
She dragged her fingertips along the fabric over and over, as though the motion could summon him back into the room.
Three days, he’d said.
Three small words that now felt like an eternity stretched thin.
She exhaled—a sound so soft it barely disturbed the air—and let herself fall backward on
