Chapter 149 A Different Kind Of Silence

• ⊰ Alaki ⊱
• Something has shifted in Efrem these past few weeks. I can’t quite name it—a gentleness that wasn’t there before, not in his touch or words, but something more fundamental. The way his eyes linger on me when he thinks I’m not looking. The way he hesitates before speaking, as if carefully weighing each word. As if afraid of saying the wrong thing.
• It’s been three weeks since he found me in that ice-cold bath, three weeks since my desperate attempt to tear off his necklace, three weeks since he flushed those pills down the toilet and promised to find another way.