The night air was cool, the silence between Derek and me stretching out like a blanket that muffled the world. We sat there, side by side, our eyes adjusting to the soft glow of the moon filtering through the trees. For the first time in what felt like forever, I didn’t feel the overwhelming weight of my emotions, or the biting ache that had settled in my chest when Lucas had chosen Alys. The quiet of the woods, the calm that Derek seemed to bring with him, offered me a strange sense of peace.
But there was something else, something that lingered between us, unspoken but undeniable. I could feel Derek’s presence beside me, but he wasn’t pressuring me, wasn’t asking for anything. I appreciated that. It was a quiet kind of understanding that I hadn’t realized I needed until now.
Derek shif
