Back inside the mall, everything feels like it's mocking me, my life. Things went too pristine, too perfect, unlike things that happens to me.
And during the drive, the quiet one where words hovered like ghosts, I focus on the moving city just to soothe my frayed nerves.
We're back to my place again, he opens the car door without a word. His motion is seamless, not preformative. It's not cold, it's not even conscious anymore.
I step out, and he walks ahead. His hands are in pockets, his spine straight, his rhythm measured. He's always one step in front, like he's paving the way without ever looking back, he doesn't even confirm if I'm following.
And still, I follow.
When we stop at my door, something strange washes over me. This is my place, technically, but his presence fills it so completely. I feel like the guest in my own place, like I'm the one waiting to be invited in.
"Thanks for today," I say, unsure what I'm even thanking him for. Maybe the dress? The silence or the confusion he created for me? Maybe I was thanking him for saving my pride.
He nods once. "Okay. I'll send word about your schedule for the engagement day."
He waits for the response, I guess. He turns to go, but there's a pause in his movement, the kind that waits. That invites.
"I'd prefer a message," I say. My voice is steadier this time.
That makes him turn back to me. His eyes meet mine, like he's re calibrating, like I said something unexpected.
I pull out my phone and hold it out towards him saying, "I don't like waiting for an assistant to speak for the person I'm going to be engaged."
There it is again, the faint lift of his brow. Not dramatic. Barely a flicker, but I notice. Every move of this man makes my heart flutter, even the simplest gesture.
He takes the phone like it's heavier than it should be. He types something in, his number and hands it back to me.
R.A.
That's all he saves it. Not Rian, not Ashford but his initials. That's all I get to know about him and that's not enough.
Our fingers brush and it's accidental. Or maybe not. It's quick but the heat lingers.
"You're allowed to text, you know," I say. "Or are cold silences part of your clause too?"
He doesn't smile but something moves at the edge of his mouth. Like a secret escaping of something.
"You assume I haven't already typed a dozen things and deleted them."
I blink, that one stuns me.
"What?"
He steps closer. Just enough to fill the gap and the air between thicken.
"Nothing good comes out when I speak in rush," he says. "And with you, I tend to forget how to be careful."
Those words hit deeper than they should, I don't know whether to believe his words or not. They did deeper than I'm ready for.
"I don't want careful," I whisper. "I want real. Even if it breaks me." I continued "If you hate me, then show me. But don't act like you like me when you don't. That… confuses me."
He looks at me like he's trying to figure out which part of me still believes that I deserve honesty.
"Don't contract couples act like they're in love? We have to act nicely, love…. For the world"
"Yeah," I say. "But I don't want pretend, when we're alone."
He studies me and gives us a moment of silence, it feels like he's choosing his next breath carefully, he exhales slowly.
"Then text me," he says, his voice lower. "When you want to see something real."
Before I could speak, he adds, "The engagement announcement is in two days."
I pause "And?"
"I'll handle the press, all you have to do is show up on the engagement day. It's after two days of announcement."
I tilt my head. "And smile is mandatory, right?"
He nodes
"Only if it doesn't hurt too much."
His voice is soft and almost fragile. Like he also aches for my pain but this time I won't believe.
Later, back in my room, I sit by the window.
It's raining, the first rain of the year, bold and uninvited. It feels like the promise, soft and hesitant. It feels like stirring the life beneath the soil just like the feelings I've buried for too long. Lunai's first rain came like an old friend. Lunai, the city, it's beautiful today. The skyline is blur and the trees sway like old souls humming lullabies. I opened my phone, Blank message thread open.
R.A.
The letters stare back like a mystery.
I thought of sending something but I don't know what to send. I just want to say something even if it's nothing.
So, I type a single dot. It sends before I can think twice.
A breath later his reply comes.
R.A.: That's already louder than most people.
I freeze, my chest tightens like it's been laced up wrong. I close the thread but the words lingered inside my mind.
I don't reply. No, I can't. The weight of that one sentence is enough to pin me to the bed.
I lie into the bed and let silence be the only thing I allow myself to feel. The rain deepens and it doesn't feel any better. I need to write something. I start filling my diary with my words;
Lunai smells like damp promises. Something is trying to bloom through the old pain. Spring is cruel, it opens things you aren't ready to feel. It's been pouring constantly, for 2 hours. Maybe the clouds are screaming out their thoughts into the drops after holding pain for too long. These days, I also laughed, I cried and sometimes pretend none of it happened. I miss him, miss him in the way raindrops miss the sky and the way silence miss the sound. I miss him without permission, I hate him but I wish I could do it in better way.
---
Those two days, they were hollow. No call. No message. No knock on the door. It's been around 45 hours since he gave me his number. He vanishes like he never stood by the door with eyes that saw too much and said too little. I keep checking my phone.
Nothing was there.
Every time I hear a car pull up, my heart jumps thinking that it's the black. Then my heart crashes after not getting what I expect.
I tell myself not to care, he's just doing what he's always done. But my brain, it doesn't listen, it waits. It reminds.
The girl who said she wanted real is now the girl with a screen full of nothing, waiting for something, his text. A thousand unspoken things are buried beneath that one dot and he answered it with a sentence that felt like, he feels me. But now, he disappeared.
I'm pretending, doing normal conversation with my parents, acting like everything is okay. I am scrolling past his name too often. R.A. The letters don't change but I do. A little more each hour. A little restless, a little less hopeful, a little more haunted.
His one text, it shouldn't have mattered. If it mattered, I should have replied.
I prefer to pretend it doesn't affect me. But it does. Because it made me believe in him, just for a second.
And now?
Now I'm just a girl sitting on her bed, holing her phone in hand. Staring at a name that means too much and says too little.
And still, I wait.
Because something in his words feels deliberate and I want to know what he is saying.
Even if it breaks me.