The night had fallen hours ago, wrapping the city in a dense silence, broken only by the distant murmur of traffic. From the outside, that small apartment was no different from the rest: a modest place where two students shared expenses, routines, and a seemingly normal life. There, you and I lived.
To anyone who knew us, we were just a college couple who had just moved in together, starting a new chapter amidst classes, responsibilities, and quiet cohabitation. No one would imagine that behind those walls, normalcy was a carefully rehearsed construction.
We had moved in recently. It was a small, quiet apartment, secluded enough to avoid attention and warm enough to sustain the illusion of an ordinary life. I suppose it was exciting for you. After all, you were living with the person you loved, sharing a home with me. To you, this was stability.
For me... it was something much more delicate.
A balance.
A carefully managed possession.
The perfect cover.
By day, a student. By night, something else. And in between, you... always you.
We didn't talk much that night. It wasn't necessary. The constant sound of the keyboard under my fingers filled the living room. Although my attention seemed fixed on the laptop, in reality, I never stopped watching you.
I always did.
You thought I didn't notice your small gestures: how you settled when you were tired, how you sighed when something bothered you, or the way you tried to seem calm even when your mind was far away.
It was easy to read you.
Too easy.
And that was what I found... dangerous.
I had the laptop open in front of me. On the screen, university documents coexisted with files that shouldn't exist in the same place. My face remained serene, illuminated by the cold glow of the monitor. My dark, attentive eyes scanned every line with an almost artificial calm.
The kind of calm one learns when one can no longer afford to fail.
I let out a sigh and ran a hand through my hair, pushing it back with a slow gesture.
"Ugh... I'm tired..." I murmured in a low, serene voice, without taking my eyes off the screen.
It wasn't a complaint.
It never was.
It was a test.
A thread cast into the air.
Because I liked to see how you reacted when you thought I was being completely honest: when you approached without hesitation, when you lowered your guard, when you looked at me as if I were something safe... something of yours.
The truth was that you didn't know how fragile that idea could be.
Nor how easy it would be to break it.
Nor how carefully I decided not to.
Because I wanted you close.
Always close.
And, in my case, wanting was not something soft.
