Mira knew something had changed the moment Jalen walked through the door.
He carried himself differently—his steps heavier, his shoulders taut, his eyes shadowed with something she hadn't seen in months. It wasn't depression, not exactly. It was truth, raw and jagged, scraping at the edges of his new joy.
He set his coat down without a word.
Mira rose from the table. "Jalen? What happened?"
His gaze met hers, sharp and unyielding. "I know."
Her stomach dropped. "Know what?"
He lifted the empty vial she had forgotten to hide, its faint shimmer catching the dim light. "About the Exchange. About what you've been doing. About what you've given up."
The world tilted. Mira's knees nearly buckled.
"I went there," Jalen said, his voice hoarse. "I saw it with my own eyes. The shelves, the vials. The woman with pale eyes—she told me everything. She could smell you on me, Mira. She knew you'd been there. Again and again."
Mira's hands trembled. "Jalen—"
His voice cracked. "How much of yourself did you sell for me?"
The silence that followed was unbearable. Mira opened her mouth, searching for words, but nothing came. How could she quantify the cost? Laughter, poetry, wonder, trust, fire—pieces of her soul, stripped away one by one.
Finally, she whispered, "Enough to keep you alive."
Jalen staggered back as though struck. "Alive? Mira, this isn't life. It's theft. You've carved yourself hollow to fill me up. Do you think that makes me happy?"
Tears blurred her vision. "You were drowning, Jalen. I couldn't just watch. I had to save you."
"Save me?" His voice broke into a bitter laugh. "You didn't save me. You bought me. You bought my happiness at the cost of your own."
Mira shook her head desperately. "I did it because I love you."
But Jalen's eyes shone with anguish. "Then stop. Please, Mira, stop before there's nothing left of you."
Her chest ached as though her ribs would crack. "I can't," she whispered. "If I stop, the darkness will take you again. I won't lose you."
Jalen's hands clenched at his sides. "And if I lose you instead? What then? What good is my happiness if it costs me the only person I have left?"
The words tore through her like shattered glass.
She wanted to hold him, to tell him he was wrong, that she was strong enough to bear it. But as she reached out, Jalen stepped back.
And the distance between them felt wider than ever.
That night, silence devoured the apartment.
Mira sat curled in the corner, staring at the cold flame of a candle she could no longer feel. Jalen lay awake on his bed, his thoughts a storm.
For the first time, they were together yet utterly alone.
In the days that followed, tension thickened like smoke. Jalen refused the vials she placed before him. "I don't want them," he said, his jaw set.
"You need them," Mira argued, her voice cracking. "Without them, you'll sink again."
"Then let me sink," he snapped. "Better me than you."
But Mira couldn't accept it. She couldn't bear to see him fade again, couldn't let the shadows reclaim him.
And so the cycle twisted tighter: her desperation against his refusal, her sacrifices against his guilt.
Every word they spoke now was a fracture. Every silence was a wound.
One evening, as the sun bled into the horizon, Jalen broke the quiet.
"I won't let you go back there again," he said firmly.
Mira's heart jolted. "You can't stop me."
He turned to her, his eyes blazing. "Watch me."
And for the first time, Mira realized their fight was no longer against his depression. It was against each other.