Sophia
It felt like someone else's voice was escaping my mouth.
“She now sounds like a riot,” I said.
“Well, I guess she is.”
But just as quickly as the moment rose, the laughter died in my throat.
I don’t even know why. Maybe it was because my body remembered it was tired. Or, perchance, my mind remembered it was hunted.
The air just shifted, and suddenly the world felt heavy again.
Stanford noticed.
He stopped talking. Just like that. No awkward fidgeting. No pushing.
He just… let the silence return. Gave me space to be small again.
I was grateful for that.
A second later, his hand moved to the dash, flipping through the radio stations. Static. Rap. Afrobeat. Some old-school funk. Nothing stuck.
Everything felt too loud.
Until—
“Wait,” I said, sitting up.
“Hmm?”
“That on
