The silence between Arielle and Kairo had started to feel heavier, like a rope tightening around her neck. Each day, it became harder to breathe naturally in his presence. He wasn’t shouting, he wasn’t openly accusing, but something about the way his eyes lingered told her he had noticed.
That small mistake last week—something so ordinary, so easy to brush off—had not been forgotten. She had seen it in the way his gaze sharpened, in how his questions afterward had felt more pointed though still coated in casualness. He smiled, said little, and let her walk away. But Arielle knew better. That smile was not forgiveness. It was a warning.
So she had begun to think. And planning—carefully, quietly—was the only thing left she could control.
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Arielle spent her mo
