The car was silent except for the gentle hum of the engine and the soft breathing of the Elena beside him.
She was quiet—her eyes gazing out the window, arms wrapped around herself like she was still trying to hold her pieces together.
And kalix?
His mind was chaos.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, jaw clenched thinking...
Why did this happen ?
Why wasn't I there sooner?
He glanced at her.
She looked small. Fragile. Like one wrong word could shatter her.
She always tried to look composed, to stay calm, but he had seen the crack tonight—the crack she'd hidden so well from everyone, maybe even from herself.
That moment under the streetlamp, when he saw her curled up behind the car…
It shook him to his core.
What if I had been late ? What if she…
He stopped the thought before it could finish.
He didn't want to imagine that world. A world without her.
She had changed everything.
He used to be someone who didn't notice the little things. Who never looked too deep.
But now?
He noticed every shift in her mood. Every hesitation in her voice. Every time she smiled but her eyes didn't.
She had this way of making people feel seen—while hiding every part of herself. And it made him wonder… how long has she been doing this? How long has she been pretending to be okay?
He wanted answers.
But more than that—
He wanted her to never go through anything like that again.
He glanced at her again. She was hugging the bag of cookies the child had made for her earlier that day… like it was something precious.
And in that moment, he made a quiet promise to himself:
I will protect her. Even if she never tells me why she was broken, I will never let her feel alone in her darkness again.