Blake's POV
The day of my release was anticlimactic—processed out at 6 AM, handed belongings I'd arrived with twenty months ago, walked through gates that opened onto a world that had continued without me.
Sofia was waiting with coffee and a smile that suggested she'd been up all night preparing for this moment.
"Okay." Her voice was guarded but listening.
"The past twenty months of letter-writing, of learning to exist without strategy, of figuring out who I am when I'm not performing—all of that was real. And somewhere in that process, my feelings for you stopped being complicated and became just... simple. I love you, Aloe. Not because you're useful, not because you're part of some plan, just because you're you."
Silence on the other end. I could hear Evelyn babbling in the backgrou
