The day of the party arrived too quickly.
Ava had known it would. The invitation had sat like a silent threat over the house for days now, present in every quiet glance and tightened jaw. And yet when she opened her eyes that morning, sunlight spilling across the ceiling in pale gold streaks, she felt unprepared in a way she couldn't explain.
Her first thought wasn't about the party.
It was about him.
Damian.
The memory of the previous evening returned to her with startling clarity. The dim light in that room. The quiet way his voice had shifted when he spoke about his childhood. About his father. About his mother. About the silence that had filled their home long before he ever learned how to speak inside it.
He hadn't said much. Just enough.
Just enough for her to see the boy he had been.
And before she could think, before she could weigh consequences or pride or boundaries, she had crossed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him.
