For the rest of the day, the flat felt different.
Not smaller, not colder — just taut, as though every word unsaid hung in the air between us.
We moved around each other carefully, politely. He cooked, I washed up. The ordinary rhythm of our days remained, but the warmth was gone. Even when he brushed past me in the small kitchen, there was a space between us that hadn't been there before.
I didn't go home, we hadn't discussed it, but I wasn't ready to go yet. He didn't ask me about it, but I knew he wanted me to stay. I stayed, but kept my distance.
When it grew late, I curled up on the sofa with a book I didn't read, listening to him move about in the bedroom.
The quiet was deafening. It wasn't that we were fighting; there were no raised voices, no slammed doors. It was worse than that. We were both holding back, trapped by the things we couldn't say.
He wanted to protect me. I wanted him to understand why I couldn't let him.
I caught myself glancing toward the door once, imagining what it would feel like to just leave, to take the choice out of his hands. The thought stung more than I expected. Because I didn't want to leave. Not really. I just wanted him to understand me.
Eventually, the light went off in the bedroom. I lay awake long after, listening to his steady breathing through the wall, wondering if he was lying awake too.
For the first time since he'd walked into my life, I wasn't sure what to say to him.
*****
Brandon's POV
Sleep wouldn't come.
I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the faint hum of the city outside the window. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard her voice again — tight, sharp, wounded: "If I take your help, then I'm still the girl who needs saving."
I'd meant it as kindness. Protection. That's all I'd ever wanted to give her after everything she'd been through. But she'd bristled as though I was no better than her parents, pulling strings, deciding her life for her.
I didn't understand. Not fully.
For me, help had always been a rare currency. My parents never gave it; Julie was the only one who did. I'd grown up learning that when someone offers a steady hand, you take it before it's snatched away. Survival depended on it.
But Amelia… she was different. She wasn't trying to survive anymore. She was trying to reclaim something. Maybe pride. Maybe herself.
And the truth hit me with a hollow weight in my chest: every time I tried to make things easier for her, I was stealing the very thing she was fighting to build.
I rolled onto my side, pressing my fist against my mouth to stifle the frustration threatening to break loose. I wanted her safe. I wanted her unburdened. But maybe what she needed wasn't a protector at all. Maybe what she needed was someone who believed she could stand on her own, even if it meant watching her stumble.
That was harder than any gauntlet of press or public scandal. Harder because it asked me to let go, when every instinct screamed at me to hold tighter.
Through the thin wall, I thought I heard her turn over on the sofa, restless. Awake, like me.
And for the first time, I wondered if my silence was hurting her more than my words ever could.
*****
Amelia's POV
When I woke, the light was already spilling through the curtains. My back ached from the sofa, and my mouth was dry. For a moment I considered burrowing back under the blanket, pretending the day didn't exist, but I heard the faint sound of movement from the kitchen and sat upright.
Brandon was in there, already dressed for work. He moved quietly, deliberately, like someone trying not to disturb a fragile balance. The kettle hissed on the counter.
When he saw me, he hesitated — just for a second — but then he reached for a second mug.
"Coffee?" he asked simply.
I nodded, crossing the room to take it. Our fingers brushed, warm against the ceramic, and the silence stretched — but this time it wasn't sharp. Just… quiet.
"Thanks," I murmured, wrapping my hands around the mug.
He studied me for a heartbeat, then glanced away. "I'll be late tonight. Some things I need to catch up on at the office."
"Oh." My throat tightened. It sounded like an excuse, but his voice wasn't cold, just tired.
"Don't overdo it."
He gave me the faintest smile. Not the easy ones I'd come to love, but a shadow of it, like a truce.
I wanted to say more — about how I understood why he wanted to help me, about why I'd reacted the way I had — but the words tangled in my chest. So instead I took a sip of the coffee, the warmth spreading through me, and let the silence sit softer this time.
Maybe this was how it had to be for now. Not everything mended with grand speeches.
Sometimes it was enough to make coffee, to stay in the same room, and to not let the space between us widen any further.
*****
The days that followed settled into a rhythm that was almost normal — almost.
We spoke when we needed to. Shared coffee in the mornings. Exchanged the bare bones of how our days had gone when Brandon returned from work.
But the warmth wasn't quite back. His smiles didn't linger, mine didn't reach my eyes. It was as though we'd built a fragile bridge between us, and neither of us dared set both feet on it in case it collapsed.
I caught myself watching him more than once. The way his shoulders seemed tenser when he thought I wasn't looking. The way he opened his mouth sometimes, like he wanted to say something, only to close it again. I wanted him to ask. I wanted to explain. But every time the moment rose, fear clawed in.
What if he didn't understand? What if he decided I wasn't worth the fight?
So I said nothing.
He said nothing.
And the silence grew heavier, even as our gestures grew gentler. A cup of tea waiting for me. Buying the food I like for dinner every evening. A hand brushing close enough to remind me he was there, but never close enough to hold.
It wasn't distance. Not exactly. More like… waiting. A slow burn neither of us knew how to set alight without risking everything.