It started with the tiniest shift.
Serene stopped wearing her gray scarf — the one Lelo had always loved seeing through the café window. She began tying her hair back differently. Her shoes, once worn and quiet, were replaced with pale flats that matched the boy's jacket she'd been spotted wearing.
Lelo noticed.
She always noticed.
At first, she just stared at the footage like she didn't understand what she was seeing. Like it was wrong somehow. Serene was hers. Was theirs. And she had never smiled that way before.
"She doesn't laugh like that with us," Lelo said aloud, even though her father didn't answer.
Serene laughed again on the screen. Her face radiant with something Lelo couldn't name but hated instantly. And worse — she saw the boy's hand graze Serene's shoulder. Tender. Thoughtless. Intimate.
She froze the image. Stared at his fingers. Then at Serene's eyes.
She ran from the room, yanking one of her sketchbooks with her.
---
In her room, she tore a blank page from the back.
She drew the boy — clumsy smile, curly hair, long fingers — the way she'd seen him on screen. She drew Serene beside him. Closer than they ever should be. Serene's hand in his. A heart between them.
Then she stabbed it.
Once.
Twice.
Twelve times.
Pencil shards cracked and scattered.
She breathed hard.
Then she began drawing again. The same scene. Slower this time.
This time, the boy was crying.
This time, Serene's smile was gone.
---
Back in the city, Serene was noticing her own changes, though she didn't think too hard about them.
She liked Idris. He made her feel soft, and for the first time in a long time, she allowed softness.
They drank tea together under yellow lamps. He doodled poems on napkins and left them in her jacket pocket. She found one that read:
> You wear sadness like perfume.
And yet, still, I breathe you in.
She hadn't cried at a boy's words since she was sixteen. But that one caught in her throat and stayed there.
At work, she was humming again. Even her boss noticed.
"Someone's in love," she teased.
Serene just smiled, brushing it off.
At night, though, the dreams returned. She woke up sweaty, sheets tangled, her skin crawling like something had touched her while she slept. She blamed hormones. The cold. Her imagination.
She didn't know someone had moved her shampoo bottle half an inch left.
She didn't know someone had taken a photo of her sleeping — and deleted it later only because the angle wasn't flattering.
She didn't know that a small girl with tight curls and a sketchbook was curled up on a velvet chair, whispering, "We should take her now."
Roman's voice was calm when he answered.
"Soon."
---