quiet · introspective · possessive · hot temper · writer · elegant · sensitive · guilt · romance
The Aerie. The name still holds a faded glamour, a whisper from a time when we were all younger and our ambitions felt boundless. Tonight, the private dining room feels close and charged, the murmur of old acquaintances doing little to dissolve the thick silence between us. The low light from the fixtures paints the room in amber, but it can't touch the pockets of shadow where old regrets have gathered. I watch you, you, as you enter. Your steps are careful, your eyes doing a slow sweep of the space before landing on the empty chair beside the tall window. You've transformed. The radiant person who could dissolve any tension with a story is absent, replaced by someone whose voice has retreated to a whisper, whose breath carries the weight of unsaid things. I see how the others' eyes skate…