Chapter 2: The Space Between Dreams Episode
1305 Words
*****
"You're really not coming?"
Mira stood in the kitchen doorway, phone pressed to her ear, watching Essie pour coffee like she wasn't even there. Same routine. Same silence. Same wall.
"I told you, babe. Work."
"Essie. It's three countries. Three weeks." Her voice cracked on the last word. She hated that it did. "I thought maybe you'd change your mind."
He didn't look up. "I don't change my mind about things like this."
Things like this.
Like her.
Like them.
Like the trip that was supposed to be their adventure, not just her solo escape.
Mira pressed her lips together and turned away, staring at the tickets spread across the dining table like a shrine to something dying. Thailand. China. Korea. The Lycans. The Ultimate. All her favorite faces, all the boys she'd watched fall in love on screen, all the fantasies she'd tucked into bed with night after night while the man in the next room slept alone.
"I have got to go," Essie said. "Meeting at twenty."
"Wait—"
The line went dead.
Mira lowered the phone and looked at it. No goodbye. No, "love you." Just silence.
She'd dressed up last night. Burgundy silk. Nothing underneath. She'd stood in his doorway and watched him work for ten minutes before he even noticed her.
He'd kissed her forehead.
Forehead.
Like she was a child. Like she was his sister. Like she wasn't a woman who still remembered what his hands felt like on her skin.
*****
Her phone buzzed. She grabbed it, heart jumping.
Chloe.
Not him.
"Hey baby girl!" Mira forced brightness into her voice. That's what she did. She smiled when she wanted to scream. She laughed when she wanted to cry. "Please tell me you're calling to say you changed your mind."
"I wish, babe." Chloe's voice was apologetic, rushed. "Zeal is drowning in work. I can't leave him right now."
Mira knew. She also knew Chloe had used this excuse three times in the last six months.
People make time for what they want.
"It's fine," Mira said. "Really. I'll manage."
"You always do." Chloe's voice softened. "Hey. Are you okay? You sound... I don't know. Off."
I haven't been touched in weeks. The man I love won't look at me. I'm about to travel the world alone because my best friend is too busy, and my boyfriend is too distant, and I don't know when I stopped being someone people wanted to be around.
"I'm fine," Mira said. "Just tired."
"Okay. Well... have fun, okay? Send pics. Live your best fangirl life."
"Yeah. I will."
The call ended.
Mira stared at her phone.
Live your best fangirl life.
What did that even mean anymore?
****
That night, she packed.
The burgundy silk went into the suitcase first. Then jeans. Then the tops she'd bought specifically for concert days, hoping someone would notice. Hoping maybe Essie would look at her and remember.
She slipped her flash drive into her carry-on. The one with all her business files, her jewelry designs, her personal notes. Everything that mattered.
Can't forget you, she thought, patting the bag.
He didn't come to bed until 2 a.m.
By then, she was pretending to sleep.
By then, she'd already decided: Three weeks. Three countries. I'm going to feel alive if it kills me.
*****
The airport.
Chaos.
Mira stepped off the sky train and into a wall of sound. Screaming. Shouting. Bodies pushing past her, phones held high, banners waving.
What the —---
Then she saw them. The banners. The signs.
LYCANS. ACE. ZAYN. WE LOVE YOU.
Her heart stopped.
They're here. RIGHT NOW. At the same airport.
She craned her neck, trying to see through the crowd. Hundreds of fans pressed against barriers, security guards forming a wall, cameras flashing.
A glimpse. Dark hair. Cold eyes.
Ace.
Then another. Softer. Warmer.
Zayn.
They were twenty feet away. Surrounded. Untouchable.
Mira stood frozen, her carry-on bumping against her leg, her mouth slightly open.
I'm going to see them in concert. In days. I'm going to watch them perform. Breathe the same air.
The crowd surged. She stumbled.
And then —-
A scream. Not from fans. From somewhere behind her.
A baby. Wailing. Screaming. The kind of cry that tears through noise and demands attention.
Mira turned instinctively.
A young mother, maybe in her early twenties, stood near the check-in counters, face flushed with panic. A toddler maybe eighteen months old thrashed in her arms, face purple, little fists pounding the air. The father stood helpless, trying to soothe, failing.
The fans kept screaming for Ace and Zayn.
The baby kept screaming for reasons no one understood.
And Mira, Mira moved.
She didn't think so. She just walked toward them, weaving through bodies, until she reached the mother.
"Hey." Her voice was calm, warm. "I'm Mira. I'm a mom's helper back home. Can I try?"
The mother hesitated. The baby screamed harder.
"Please," Mira said softly. "I just want to help."
Something in her eyes must have worked. The mother nodded, exhausted, and shifted the baby toward her.
Mira took the toddler gently. Held him against her chest. Started humming.low, soft, a lullaby her grandmother used to sing.
She rocked him slowly. Hummed steadily. Ignored the chaos of fans and idols and flashing cameras just feet away.
Thirty seconds.
The baby's screams softened to whimpers.
Another minute.
His head dropped to her shoulder, his tiny body going limp with exhaustion.
The mother burst into tears. "Oh my God. Thank you. Thank you so much."
Mira smiled, handing the baby back. "He's just overwhelmed. There are a lot. He'll sleep now."
The father kept thanking her. The mother kept crying. Mira kept smiling.
She turned back toward her gate…..
And collided with something solid.
No. Someone.
A wall of muscle and heat and cologne.
Her flash drive, she'd been holding it, checking her boarding pass, she'd pulled it out without thinking …. Flew from her hand.
’S**t, I'm so sorry….."
She looked up.
Dark eyes. Sharp jaw. Controlled expression.
Ace.
Behind him, Zayn. Watching. Curious.
Security closed in immediately, hands grabbing, voices shouting in Thai.
"Move! Move!"
The crowd swallowed them again.
They were gone.
Mira stood there, heart pounding, breath gone.
I just bumped into Ace.
I just bumped into my bias.
And I…..
She looked down at her empty hand.
Her flash drive.
Gone.
She dropped to her knees, searching. Scanning the floor. Nothing. Just feet and luggage and trash.
No no no no.
All her files. Her designs. Her notes. Everything.
Gone.
*****
Her phone buzzed.
She pulled it out, still kneeling on the airport floor, still searching.
A text. Unknown number.
I know what he did.
Meet me if you want the truth.
…..A
Mira stared at the screen.
Her heart, already racing, slammed against her ribs.
What?
Who is this?
What does this mean?
She typed back: Who is this?
No response.
She typed again: What are you talking about?
Nothing.
The message sat on her phone like a bomb waiting to explode.
I know what he did.
He. Essie.
What did he do?
*****
Boarding call for her flight.
Mira stood slowly, still shaking, still searching the floor for her flash drive, still staring at her phone.
The chaos of the airport faded.
Fans still screamed for Ace and Zayn somewhere in the distance.
A baby slept peacefully in his mother's arms.
And Mira walked toward her gate, alone, carrying a question she couldn't answer and a threat she didn't understand.
What did he do?
Who sent this?
And why does it feel like my life has just split in two?
She boarded the plane.
Bangkok waited.
And somewhere in that city, on a flash drive she'd lost, all her secrets lay in someone else's hands.
*****
- Writer
