Fading
1715 Words
**SELENE**
The bruise was almost gone.
She saw it in the mirror and kept looking anyway, one hand braced on the sink, sleeve pushed high enough to catch the light. Pale now. Yellow at the edges. Nothing that would make anyone else stop. Nothing Edward could use.
That did not make it better.
She dropped her arm, pulled the sleeve down, and left the bathroom.
The phone was already buzzing on the kitchen counter when she got there. Marcus.
Need you in early. Whitmore desk wants a response before nine.
She read it once. Set the phone down. Opened the laptop. Started working.
No hesitation. No point in giving herself one.
The apartment stayed quiet around her. Not peaceful. Quiet in the way of closed doors.
She had been at the table long enough to lose track of time when Kael came in.
He did not speak right away. Cabinet. Water. Cup on the counter. Then, “You’re up.”
She kept her eyes on the screen. “So are you.”
His coffee poured. “You’re working.”
“Yes.”
“At this hour.”
“Yes.”
He drank from the cup. “You’re not sleeping.”
She looked at him then. “You came out here to say that?”
“I came out for coffee.”
“Then drink it.”
He stayed where he was.
That was the part that irritated her most. Not the words. The fact that he didn’t leave when she made it obvious he should.
His gaze moved once toward the hall. Claudia’s door had light under it.
“She’s awake too,” he said.
Selene kept typing. “She’s fifteen.”
“That wasn’t the point.”
“Then say the point.”
He looked at her for a second. “You both stay up too late when something’s wrong.”
Her hands stopped.
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t answer.
That was worse.
She shut the laptop halfway. “If you want to criticize my sleep, do it somewhere else.”
“I’m not criticizing it.”
“Could have fooled me.”
His eyes went to her arm. Not the bruise. The place where it had been.
She saw the glance. He knew she saw it.
Neither of them spoke.
He went to the counter, took the bread, and started to toast it. Crack. Push. Turn. He moved with the same exactness he brought to everything else, as if even breakfast had to be managed correctly or not at all.
She watched him and hated that she was watching.
Claudia appeared in the doorway wearing one of Kael’s sweaters and looking half dead on her feet.
She took one look at them and said, “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Selene said.
Claudia looked at Kael. “That means something happened.”
Kael slid two plates onto the counter. “Your sister was awake half the night.”
Claudia sat down. “She does that.”
Selene shot her a look.
Claudia ignored it and started eating.
Kael set a plate in front of Selene.
“I said I wasn’t hungry,” she said.
“Eat.”
She looked at him. “No.”
His expression didn’t change. “Yes.”
Claudia glanced up once, then kept eating.
Selene picked up the fork and ate because refusing would have turned it into a thing, and she was done making things out of nothing.
The food was too hot at first. She waited, then took another bite.
Kael noticed.
Of course he did.
“Careful,” he said.
“With what?”
“Everything.”
Claudia made a small sound that might have been amusement if she’d been in a better mood. Selene ignored it.
The bruise had faded by the time they finished.
That should have been the end of it.
It wasn’t.
Kael looked at her arm again when he thought she wasn’t watching.
She was watching.
“What?” she asked.
His eyes met hers. “Nothing.”
Claudia stood first. “I’m going back to bed.”
“At a normal hour?” Kael asked.
“No.”
He said nothing to that.
She left.
Selene stayed seated.
Kael washed his plate. Rinsed it. Set it in the rack. He did not look at her while he did it.
“You still working?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He nodded once. “Of course.”
She should have left it there.
Instead she said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
His mouth shifted once. “It means you don’t stop.”
“Neither do you.”
“No.”
That was all.
He dried his hands and left the kitchen.
Selene stayed where she was for a minute after he was gone.
**KAEL**
He should have gone back to the office.
He knew that and didn’t.
The kitchen was quieter after Claudia left, which made it worse. Selene was still at the table, one hand on the laptop, the other around a mug she wasn’t drinking from. She was staring at the screen like it had personally offended her.
He had seen the bruise go from angry to fading and had not said anything about that either. There were a lot of things he didn’t say now that had nothing to do with strategy.
That was a problem.
He stayed in the doorway a second too long, then crossed to the counter and checked his messages without reading them.
Damon had sent two.
**You coming in?**
**Or are you pretending coffee is a meeting?**
Kael ignored both.
He looked up.
Selene still hadn’t moved. Her shoulders were straight, her expression flat, the kind of composure that took effort and made effort look like instinct. She did that. Held herself as if the body were just another thing that could be managed if she kept enough distance from it.
He knew something about that. More than he should.
She picked up her mug and set it back down untouched.
He looked at her arm again before he could stop himself. The mark was almost gone. That should have meant nothing. It didn’t.
He told himself it was because Edward had done it. Because bruises mattered when men like Edward gave them. Because that was the kind of thing that left evidence behind.
It was not because he kept noticing the way Selene looked when she thought no one was paying attention.
He stood at the sink and washed a plate he had already washed. Once. Twice. Enough to give his hands something to do.
Claudia came in then, half asleep and wearing one of his sweaters like she had every right to it. She looked from him to Selene and stopped.
“What happened?”
Selene answered before he could. “Nothing.”
Claudia’s eyes narrowed. “That means something happened.”
Kael set the plate aside. “She didn’t sleep.”
Claudia did not look convinced, but she took the plate he set out for her anyway and sat down.
The two of them always shifted things without asking. Books. Food. Distance. Space.
He pretended not to mind and did, which was irritating in itself.
Selene ate because she was being watched and hated being watched.
He knew that too.
He should have said less. He said more.
“You’re too thin,” he heard himself say.
Selene looked up like she wanted to cut him open with a spoon. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Talk to me like I’m a problem you’ve decided to solve.”
Claudia made a sound into her toast that was suspiciously close to a laugh and got a look for it from both of them.
Kael ignored the look. “You don’t eat.”
“I do.”
“Not enough.”
She set her fork down. “You’re not my doctor.”
“No.”
That shut the room up.
Good.
He picked up his cup, took one sip, and kept his face flat. “I’m aware.”
Selene held his gaze for a second longer than necessary. Then she looked away first, which was becoming a habit between them. Not surrender. Not exactly. Something like refusal with nowhere to go.
Claudia stood, stretched, and looked between them with the exhausted patience of someone younger than she should have been.
“I’m going back to bed,” she said.
“At a normal hour?” he asked.
“No.”
He gave her a look. She gave one back. Then she left.
Selene didn’t move.
Neither did he.
That was the problem with this arrangement. The room stayed charged even when nobody spoke. He could feel the pressure of it in the space between the counter and the table, in the thing she wouldn’t name and he was trying not to.
He should have gone back to work.
Instead he asked, “You still writing that response?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Her eyes lifted. “That’s what you’ve got?”
“It’s enough.”
“No, it isn’t.”
He looked at her for a beat. “You’re angry.”
She laughed once. No humor in it. “That’s what you think this is?”
“I think you don’t like being told to eat.”
“I don’t like being told anything.”
He almost said something else. Didn’t.
Would have been a mistake.
Instead he put the cup down, took the empty plate, and rinsed it again for no reason except that the sink gave him something to do with his hands. The bruise on her arm was gone now. That should have let something else in. It hadn’t. It had only made it harder to stop looking.
When he turned back, she was still there, shoulders squared, laptop open, face set.
He looked at her once.
She looked back.
Neither of them smiled. Neither of them softened. That was the whole point.
“Work,” he said.
She answered without moving. “Go to yours.”
He did.
The office door shut behind him and he stood there with his hand on it longer than he needed to.
He told himself it was nothing.
He almost believed it.
- Writer
