I woke to sunlight spilling across the ceiling, warm and unbothered, like the world hadn’t shifted at all overnight. For a moment I just lay there, blinking up at it, and the first thought that came to me, before the day, before work, before anything else, was her.
Amelia.
Right behind that thought came the memory of the night before, the shower, her name leaving my mouth like it belonged there, and a low, sour guilt settled into my chest before I’d even sat up. I dragged a hand down my face and told myself it meant nothing, that a man could wake up thinking about someone without it carrying any weight behind it. I almost believed it. What I couldn’t explain away so easily was what I’d done with those thoughts hours earlier
