Chapter Five – Between Distance and Desire
Amanda woke with the memory of the night clinging to her like damp cloth—too heavy, too intimate to ignore. The kiss replayed against the inside of her eyelids: desperate, clumsy, the kind of moment that changes the geography of a life. She sat up slowly, the sheets tangled around her, and waited for the world to catch up.
Downstairs, the house moved on as if nothing had happened. The kettle sang, Granny Ann hummed a song Amanda had known since she was small, and the smell of frying mandazi threaded through the halls. Those sounds should have been comfort; instead they pressed on Amanda like a reminder of the normal she had just helped dismantle.
When she stepped into the kitchen, Trahy was already there, hands wrapped around a mug. His hair stuck up at one temple; his shirt looked slept-in. He lifted his eyes for a moment and then looked away as if the motion had cost him something.
"Morning," she said—too bright, too small.
"Morning," he answered, and the word landed like a stone between them.
Granny Ann clattered plates and chatted about the weather, oblivious to the way two people at her table were unraveling. Amanda tried to eat, to focus on the warm sweetness of the mandazi, but every bite felt like an accusation.
Trahy kept his gaze on the table, but Amanda watched the tense set of his shoulders, the way his thumb rubbed the rim of his cup. She wanted to reach out, to touch the callus on his knuckle like she used to as a child, to find something solid. Instead she folded her hands in her lap and watched him like a ship she was afraid to board.
"About last night," he said finally, voice low enough to be private, even with Granny in the next room.
Amanda's throat tightened. "We shouldn't—" she began, but he cut her off with a look that made the rest of the sentence impossible to say.
"We can't pretend it didn't happen," Trahy said. "Either we set this right, or we walk away. I don't want to hurt anyone—least of all Granny."
It was the word that frayed her—Granny. How many lives did that single name protect? How many unspoken rules lived under its shelter? Amanda swallowed hard. "So what do you want?" she asked, though she already knew the answer she feared.
He looked at her then, as if seeing her for the first time since childhood—her hair falling in a loose wave, the pale freckle on her wrist, the way her bottom lip quivered when she lied.
"Time," he said. "Distance. For now."
Amanda's laugh sounded nothing like amusement. It was small and cracked. "Do you think that will fix anything? Distance hasn't changed what's already happened."
Trahy's jaw worked. "Maybe not. But it might keep us from breaking everything else."
She left before the argument could turn into something worse. Outside the compound, the air was sharp with the promise of rain. She walked without direction, each step a small attempt at erasing the taste of his mouth. Children chased a ball down the lane and an old woman mended a basket on her porch; ordinary life moved on as if nothing had ruptured. That angered her more than grief did.
At the edge of the path she paused and turned to look back. Trahy stood in the doorway, a shadow framed by the warm light of the house, watching her leave. For a second, his face was unreadable, then he dropped back into the interior like someone retreating behind a curtain.
The first fat drops of rain hit her cheeks then—cold, clean. She let them fall, unsure whether she was crying or the weather had simply decided to mark the moment with its own small lament. Either way, the world had noticed. So had she.
Amanda kept walking until the house was a small rectangle of light behind her. She knew, with the clear, painful certainty of someone who has passed a line, that there was no returning to the way things had been. They had crossed something. Whether it would save them or ruin them, neither of them yet knew.