Ava's Point of View
The drive back was quiet.
Not the heavy, suffocating kind of silence that felt like a warning sign, but the fragile kind—one wrong word away from shattering. Dylan drove with both hands on the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road ahead, jaw tight. Andre followed behind us in his own car, giving us space, or maybe just knowing better than to interfere.
I sat beside Dylan, hands folded in my lap, still wrapped in Darien's jacket. I should have taken it off. I knew that. But something about the weight of it—about the warmth it carried—had made me forget. Or maybe I hadn't forgotten at all.
Dylan noticed it too.
He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. I felt his awareness like a physical thing, hovering between us.
