The café door swung shut behind me, but Chris’s words clung to me like a second skin.
"I thought I was over you. I thought Stella was enough. But seeing you again… it changed everything."
I walked fast, almost stumbling into the evening crowd, my pulse hammering. The city was alive with noise—cars honking, voices overlapping, a dog barking in the distance—but inside my chest there was only silence, a heavy silence that felt like a storm waiting to break.
I should have been furious. I should have hated him for daring to say those things. He was Stella’s husband now—my best friend’s husband. No, my former best friend. But every step I took, every breath I dragged into my lungs, only made his voice grow louder, more intimate, more dangerous.
"I want to see you again. Just us. No lies this
