Marked by the King

Chapter Thirteen – Breathing Room

Emilia’s POV

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I told them I had a stomach bug.

A weak excuse.

Not even a creative one.

But the shift manager barely looked up from her clipboard when I said it, just waved a hand and told me to get better soon.

I didn’t correct her.

Didn’t say it wasn’t my body that was sick—it was everything else.

My mind.

My chest.

The part of me that used to feel like mine.

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I walked out of the Valeri building just before sunrise, wrapped in a too-thin coat and the kind of exhaustion that didn’t come from lack of sleep.

The streets were mostly empty.

A cab passed. A jogger. A woman in heels talking to someone on her Bluetooth.

But no one looked at me.

Which was strange.

Because lately, I’d started to feel like everyone was.

Or maybe it was just him.

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I didn’t have a plan.

No destination.

No errands or obligations or self-care checklists.

I just… needed to go.

To put space between me and the cameras. The cafeteria. The elevator that always seemed to ping open when I wasn’t ready. The man in the shadows who kept giving me gifts without a name.

I turned left instead of right at the end of the block.

Let my boots decide where we were going.

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The city changed the farther I walked.

Shimmering steel gave way to older buildings. Brick. Ivy. Places with charm instead of power.

I passed a bakery. A florist. A secondhand bookstore with its awning half-collapsed from last week’s rain.

And then I saw it.

The public library.

A low stone building tucked between a café and a bus depot. The windows were dusty, the door propped open by a potted plant half-dead from neglect.

It called to me anyway.

Like a whisper.

Like a memory.

Like the girl I used to be tugging on my sleeve and saying: Here. Please. Just for a little while.

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Inside, it smelled like old paper and lemon oil.

My fingers itched the moment I stepped past the threshold.

Not for books, specifically.

For something quiet.

For something that didn’t want anything from me.

I wandered the aisles like a ghost.

Avoided the main reading room.

Drifted instead toward the back—toward the poetry section, of all places.

And stopped.

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Poetry had always been mine.

Before Logan.

Before fear.

Back when I still believed in softness.

I ran my fingers along the faded spines like they might forgive me for leaving.

Frost. Rilke. Neruda.

I paused on a dog-eared paperback. Letters to a Young Poet. One of the poems inside had once made me cry in the middle of a bus stop.

I pulled it down. Sat cross-legged on the floor between shelves.

And opened to a random page.

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“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart…”

I didn’t mean to cry.

It just happened.

Soft.

Silent.

The kind of tears that came from being seen too deeply, even by ink on a page.

I let the words settle.

Let them sit in the space I’d been trying to fill with denial.

And I asked myself—for the first time with honesty:

Is this time mine?

Or has it already been claimed?

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Because that’s what it felt like, lately.

Like I didn’t belong to myself anymore.

Like I was waking up in someone else’s dream—with no map, no compass, and no voice that didn’t tremble when I used it.

Luca hadn’t touched me.

Not in any literal way.

But still…

I carried him.

In my pulse.

In my breath.

In the phantom sensation that someone—he—was always right behind me.

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The poetry didn’t fix me.

It didn’t snap the thread between us.

But it reminded me that I used to feel whole.

And that was enough to stand.

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I checked the book out at the front desk, thanked the librarian, and stepped back out into the cold.

Mid-morning now.

The city had come alive again.

More noise. More faces. More distractions.

But none of it changed the shift inside me.

The slight realignment of my center.

Like my body remembered what stillness felt like… even if only for a moment.

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I walked slower this time.

No destination again.

Just movement.

Until I reached the park near 18th.

Small. Tucked behind a chain-link fence. Mostly empty.

I sat on a bench and flipped the book open again.

I didn’t read.

Just held it.

Because it was mine.

And I needed something that still was.

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I stayed until the clouds thickened.

Until the sun started to fade behind the skyline.

And then… I saw him.

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At first, it was just movement.

Someone near the path.

A man in a brown jacket, pretending to tie his shoe.

Then, a few minutes later, he reappeared on the far side of the fountain. Checking his phone. Looking up. Looking away. Looking back.

Not constantly.

Not obviously.

But wrong.

Like someone who wasn’t used to hiding in plain sight.

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My throat tightened.

My first thought was Logan.

It always was.

I stood slowly, shoving the book into my bag.

Didn’t run.

Didn’t turn too fast.

Just started walking again.

Let the people between us blur the line.

Let the sidewalk swallow me.

But even then…

I knew.

It wasn’t Logan.

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Logan wouldn’t bother hiding.

He wasn’t subtle.

He was fists and slurs and apologies he never meant.

But this?

This was… different.

Sharper.

Trained.

Placed.

I kept walking until the park was three blocks behind me.

Only then did I glance back.

The man was gone.

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My heart thudded beneath my coat.

Not in fear.

Not entirely.

More like… clarity.

Because now I knew.

Whatever this was between Luca and me?

It wasn’t over.

It was only just beginning.

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By the time I reached my building, the light had changed.

Not the sky—though the clouds had thickened into a bruise overhead—but the way the world felt.

Hollow.

Hushed.

Like the silence between thunder and the crash that follows.

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I double-checked the lock behind me.

Twice.

Then leaned against the door, trying to slow my heartbeat.

I shouldn’t have stayed out that long.

I shouldn’t have walked alone.

I shouldn’t have felt calm.

But I had.

For a little while.

And now that calm felt like a lie I’d told myself on repeat—like it wasn’t mine anymore.

Like it never had been.

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The apartment was colder than usual.

I didn’t turn the heat up.

I didn’t move at all for a long time.

Just stood there, coat still on, book pressed against my chest like a shield.

I wasn’t afraid.

Not exactly.

But something inside me had shifted again.

Softer.

Slower.

Like awareness unfolding on its own terms.

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I placed the poetry book on the table and went to the window.

The street below was quiet.

A bus passed. A man walked his dog. A teenager scrolled on her phone, earphones in.

No one stood still.

No one watched.

No one was there.

And yet… I felt it again.

That low hum beneath my skin.

That pressure I couldn’t name.

I stepped back and closed the curtain.

Not because I wanted to block the view.

But because I wasn’t ready to see what might be staring back.

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Later, I sat on the couch and opened my notebook.

Not the kind meant for work or recipes or thoughts-to-forget.

This one was different.

Private.

Hidden in the back of the wardrobe behind an old sweater I never wore.

Inside, it held the parts of me I didn’t know what to do with.

Words I hadn’t said out loud.

Things I didn’t have the courage to ask for.

Until now.

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I flipped to a blank page.

Stared at it for too long.

Then picked up the pen.

And wrote:

It wasn’t Logan.

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The sentence hung in the space like a confession.

My breath hitched.

But my hand didn’t stop.

It wasn’t Logan. But I was still being watched.

Not with hate. Not with fists.

With intent.

With control.

With heat.

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I paused.

Bit the corner of my lip.

Then wrote again.

He’s watching me.

I think… I want him to.

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My cheeks burned even as I wrote the words.

But I didn’t cross them out.

Because denial hadn’t saved me.

Pretending hadn’t protected me.

And lying to myself was exhausting.

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I flipped to a new page.

Wrote just one word at the top.

Luca.

Then beneath it:

When I close my eyes, I see him.

When I breathe, I feel him.

When I dream, I want him.

I don’t know what that makes me.

But I think he already does.

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I stopped there.

Set the pen down.

Closed the book slowly and tucked it back into its hiding place.

Out of sight.

But not forgotten.

Never forgotten.

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The shower was hot enough to fog the mirror.

Steam clung to my skin like hands.

I stood under the spray until my shoulders unknotted, until the tension started to slip away, until the echo of poetry and footsteps and shadows finally dulled.

But not completely.

Nothing would erase him now.

Not even time.

Not even water.

Not even me.

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I crawled into bed in a towel and an old t-shirt, still damp, still warm, still wound too tight to sleep.

The bracelet was still on.

I held it between my fingers.

Rubbed the edge until it left a faint red line across my wrist.

I thought of the man in the park.

Of the rose.

Of the note.

Of the way Luca’s name looked in my handwriting.

And I whispered into the dark:

“I see you too.”