Mira stopped walking.
The city noise carried on around her — engines passing, distant footsteps, a crosswalk signal chiming its indifferent rhythm — but she felt removed from it all, suspended in a strange stillness that did not belong to the world she was standing in.
The phone remained pressed to her ear long after the call had ended.
There was nothing on the line anymore. No voice. No breathing. No connection.
Only the hollow hum of absence.
Her arm slowly lowered, but her body did not move. It felt heavier than it had moments before, as if the act of holding herself together during that conversation had drained something essential from her.
The fall had hurt, yes. The impact had been sharp, shocking. But pretending? Pretending had cost more.
She had no idea how she was going to explain that she no longer had her things, how she would account for the absence of the bag she had left behind on the pavement, the notebooks and pens that had seemed so unimportant in the moment and now felt suddenly conspicuous by their absence.
Her attention shifted downward.
The skin on her knees was already warming, the first signs of irritation rising where she'd made contact with the ground. Thin scratches traced uneven paths across her skin, faint but insistent, stinging more sharply as the adrenaline receded.
She bent slightly, testing the movement, and winced before she could stop herself.
"Careless," she murmured under her breath, the word barely audible, carried away by the passing air.
She straightened again, her jaw tightening as a deeper ache announced itself, spreading slowly beneath the surface.
She knew how this would progress.
By morning, the area would be mottled with bruises in shades of blue and purple, tender to the touch, impossible to ignore if she wasn't careful. The pain climbed higher, settling into her thighs and hips, a dull reminder that her body had absorbed the impact whether she acknowledged it or not.
Her arm, at least, was hidden.
The jacket draped over it shielded the worst of the damage from view, though it did nothing to dull the sensation underneath. A heavy soreness had begun to take hold there, deeper and more persistent than the sharp sting at her knees.
She rolled her shoulder slightly, then stilled when the movement sent a quiet pulse of discomfort down her forearm. Carefully, she flexed her fingers, one by one, testing herself. The motion drew a faint hiss of breath through her teeth.
"M—Miss?"
Mira stiffened.
A man stood a few feet away, mid-thirties perhaps, holding a paper coffee cup in one hand. He had slowed when he noticed her stillness, concern faint but visible in the crease between his brows.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She straightened immediately, smoothing her expression before turning toward him. Her posture shifted into something composed, something steady.
"Yes," she said evenly. "I'm fine."
He glanced at her knees.
"You look like you took a fall."
A small pause.
Mira followed his gaze downward as though noticing the abrasions for the first time.
"Oh." A soft, dismissive breath. "I wasn't paying attention."
He hesitated. "Do you need help? There's a pharmacy just down the block."
"No." She offered a polite, measured smile. Not too wide. Not too grateful. "Thank you. It's nothing."
Her tone left no room for argument.
The man studied her a moment longer, uncertainty flickering across his face. Then he nodded slowly.
"Alright. Just… be careful."
"I will."
He walked away, the sound of his footsteps fading back into the rhythm of the street.
Mira remained still until he turned the corner.
Only then did her shoulders lower slightly.
The interaction had lasted less than thirty seconds, yet it left her pulse elevated. The ease with which concern found her unsettled something deeper. Strangers noticed. Strangers saw enough to ask questions.
What would Cassian see?
The thought tightened something in her chest.
A gust of wind passed, tugging at her hair, carrying with it the smell of exhaust and something faintly sweet from a nearby café.
She became acutely aware of her surroundings again—the storefront windows reflecting her shape back at her, the muted rhythm of traffic, the way people glanced at her without really seeing her before moving on.
At least he wasn't coming home yet.
The thought offered a brief, fragile sense of relief, the idea that she would have time—time to clean herself up, time to think, time to make everything look as it should. She told herself she could hide it, that she could find a way to smooth over the evidence, to make the injuries disappear before anyone asked the wrong question or looked too closely.
But even as the thought formed, she dismissed it.
Hiding it wouldn't be enough, not with someone like Cassian, not with the way he noticed everything that mattered.
Sooner or later, the truth would surface in the small, unavoidable ways bodies revealed themselves, and she couldn't afford for that moment to happen unprepared.
She needed something better than concealment. She needed a way to heal without anyone realizing there had ever been anything to hide at all.
And for the first time since she had walked away from the street, since she had put one foot in front of the other and forced herself to keep moving, Mira felt something dangerously close to panic tightening in her chest, sharp and unwelcome, whispering that this time, control might not be enough.
Mira closed her eyes briefly, steadying herself as the city continued to move around her, unaware.
Then she opened them and took a step forward.