Charles knew she was leaving before she left.
He felt it in the way her kisses lingered too long, as if she were trying to memorize the shape of his mouth rather than taste it. In the way her fingers traced his jaw with a softness that didn’t ask for anything back. In the way she watched him when she thought he wasn’t looking—not with longing, but with a carefulness that bordered on grief.
Victoria had always been precise. That was what drew him to her first. She spoke like every word cost something. She loved like she was rationing herself. But in those final days, that restraint frayed. She touched him the way people touch photographs right before they burn them.
He noticed the way she stopped leaving her things behind. No forgotten sweater on the back of his chair. No book abandoned
