RAVENNA
I don’t know if I’d ever been this nervous over breakfast before. Maybe nervous isn’t even the right word, restless, maybe. The air between us carried an old blend of comfort and unease, like the old scent of memories mixed together with something I didn’t want to name just yet.
I sat there staring at him, my heart beating slower than it should have, almost like it didn’t know whether to relax or brace itself for what was coming. Elias had always had that effect on me, the quiet way he held my gaze, as though he could see past the words I spoke and straight into the ones I swallowed.
“Yes,” I whispered, answering the question he’d asked me moments before. “I love him.”
The words tasted strange on my tongue. They weren’t lies, but they weren’t free of hesitation either. My lips
