Unease at the Table
525 Words
Xi could still feel the heat of Nicole’s glare long after she stormed out. The encounter had shaken her, though she wasn’t exactly sure why.
The food court slowly eased back into its usual rhythm, but Xi’s pulse hadn’t quite settled. She sat stiffly beside Xion, feeling the weight of the moment like an anchor tied to her ribs.
Cole dropped into the seat across from them, shaking his head. “That was… intense.”
Karman slid into the chair next to him, tossing her bag onto the table with an exaggerated huff. “She really thinks she owns you, huh?”
Xi swallowed, glancing at Xion. He hadn’t said much since Nicole left, just sat back, exhaling slow, measured breaths like he was forcing himself to stay calm.
She hesitated before asking the question pressing against her mind. “Who… was she?”
All three of them looked at her, as if the answer should have been obvious.
“She’s a problem,” Karman said flatly, stabbing at her fries. “One Xion should’ve handled a long time ago.”
Xi shifted, her fingers curling against the edge of the table. “Handled?”
Cole leaned back, tossing a fry in his mouth. “Nicole’s been convinced that Xion is hers since forever. Pack politics. Parental expectations. A whole mess of things that shouldn’t matter but still do.”
Xi frowned. Pack dynamics were still something she was learning, trying to understand. This wasn’t a world she had been born into—not the way they had.
“She doesn’t take rejection well,” Karman continued. “If she thinks something is supposed to be hers, she clings to it like her life depends on it.”
Xi glanced at Xion again, searching for some kind of confirmation. He hadn’t spoken yet, just rubbed a hand over his face, as if exhausted.
Finally, he sighed. “Nicole refuses to accept that I’ve made my choice.” His gaze met Xi’s, steady. “That **we** don’t owe her anything.”
Xi blinked at that phrasing, the weight of it settling against her chest.
We.
It was the first time he had framed it that way—**as something that included her**.
And yet, Xi didn’t quite know what to do with it.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about Xion—not yet, not fully. She was still figuring that out. But **Nicole**? That intensity, that possessiveness—it had unsettled her in ways she couldn’t name.
Karman sighed, stretching. “Alright, enough about Nicole. You still down to head back to Xi’s place?”
Xi startled slightly at the shift in conversation, as if she’d been caught somewhere between past and present, her mind still tangled in what just happened.
Xion nodded, finally allowing the tension in his shoulders to ease. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
He stood, reaching for his drink, his presence still grounding somehow—steady, certain.
Xi stood a beat later, ignoring the way her pulse still thrummed with something she didn’t understand.
She wasn’t sure what she had stepped into.
But she had a feeling it wasn’t over yet.
- Writer
