The space between us did not widen in any way that could be measured, yet something within it hardened into a structure that neither distance nor proximity could undo, because the shift that had taken place was no longer physical but positional, a quiet reordering that placed him at the center of something that had once moved through me without hesitation, and left me standing at the edge of it, still connected, still aware, but no longer the first point of contact.
I felt the difference immediately, not as absence, but as delay, as the awareness that had once surged through me with instinctive clarity now hesitated, rerouted, and settled into him before it ever reached me, and that hesitation alone was enough to trigger something sharp and unyielding inside my chest.
“Kessler,” I said,
