The quiet after, a hush that had once felt like peace, now suffocated me. I must have dozed off, lulled by the rhythm of our shared breath, by the temporary erasure of everything but skin and a desperate, fleeting mimicry of passion.
When my eyes opened, she was already awake.
Selene. Still naked, her back to me. The raw light of dawn, sharp as splintered bone, pierced through the blinds, casting thin, pale lines across the curve of her spine. Not bars, not a prison. More like the indelible marks of a cage I'd built around myself, brick by careful brick, a cage she had helped me construct.
"Kairi," her voice, a low rumble, cut through the silence. It was a sound that used to soothe me, but now, it felt like a command.
I didn't flinch. My fingers, though, dug into the sheets, knuckles white and aching. A futile attempt to anchor myself to something real, something solid, before I dissolved completely.
"Do you regret it?" she asked, the words a soft probe in the stillness.
