We stepped out of the Scrapyard and into the cool night air, but I barely felt the drop in temperature. The transition from the adrenaline-soaked arena to the quiet pavement of the parking lot should have felt jarring, but instead, everything felt perfectly calibrated.
Adam’s hand was large and warm, his fingers interlaced with mine as we walked toward Lucky’s. For a girl who spent her life analyzing the mechanics of the world, I expected my brain to be screaming with new data points—calculating the friction of our palms or the psychological implications of this shift in our relationship.
Instead, my brain was remarkably quiet.
There was no anxious hum, no frantic overthinking. Holding his hand felt like the most natural thing in the world, like a fundamental constant I’d finally stoppe
