Chapter thirteen
The dorm was quiet.
Too quiet.
The low hum of the overhead lights, the faint clank of the old radiator, even the distant laughter drifting in from somewhere down the hall,all of it felt muffled, as though the world itself had decided to tread carefully around my thoughts.
I sat cross-legged on my bed, phone clenched in my hand, staring at the screen like it might suddenly confess something. Like the truth would finally spill if I stared hard enough.
But it didn’t.
No new messages.
None from Iris.
My chest felt tight, heavy, like someone had wrapped a fist around my heart and refused to let go. Seven days. Seven days since she’d come back, and somehow she already felt farther away than she ever had before.
I clenched the phone harder, my knuckles whitening.
I lov
