Somehow, after midnight, the city was different.
Quieter, but not calm. As though New York itself were waiting to exhale, for something to give.
Bella sat cross-legged on her bed, laptop open but ignored with a half-baked design just barely visible on the screen. For 20 minutes, however, she had been staring blankly at the same line. On the rain-slicked streets, in a voice that was still ringing in her head.
You’re changing me.
They hadn’t left her ever since Julian had walked out earlier that evening.
She checked the time. 12:47 a.m.
Too late to be productive. Too early to sleep.
Bella shut her laptop and dropped back onto the headboard, sighing deeply. Her room shrank at night, its walls drawing closer, her silence louder. Every sound from the apartment to which her door led seeme
