The silence of the apartment was deafening.
Lyra sat on the edge of her bed, wrapped in a robe, staring blankly at the floor. The morning light filtered in weakly through the curtains, but she barely noticed it. Her mind wasn't in the present. It was slipping backward, pulled into memories she rarely allowed herself to revisit.
She hadn't meant to leave Zane without a word. But waking up in his bed — with his arm loosely draped over her waist, his breath brushing her shoulder — had triggered something old, something buried.
She had panicked.
Not because she didn't care… but because she cared too much.
Her chest ached as the past came flooding in.
She was eleven when her father left. No note. No warning. Just gone.
One day, he was there — laughing, telling stories, lifting her high in the air. The next, he was a name her mother couldn't say without bitterness poisoning the room.
Her mother had changed after that.
Smiles became rare. Trust even rarer.
"Never rely on anyone to stay, Lyra," she used to say. "Especially not a man. You hear me?"
And Lyra had heard her. Loud and clear.
The first time she let someone in — when she was sixteen — ended exactly how her mother predicted. A boy named Kellan. Sweet at first. Promising things he had no idea how to keep.
He made her feel like maybe her mother was wrong.
Until he kissed someone else three days after he told her she was "the one."
She remembered standing in the school hallway, watching him laugh with another girl like Lyra never existed. That day, something inside her shut down.
A wall went up.
One she hadn't allowed anyone past since — not really.
Even with the guys she dated in college, she always held a part of herself back. She gave them the confident, sarcastic Lyra. The one who didn't need anyone. The one who made it easy to walk away first.
But last night with Zane… it felt different.
She hadn't meant for it to happen. One minute they were arguing, the next — laughing, then touching, then tangled together in something far too real.
She hadn't just given him her body.
She'd let herself feel safe — truly safe — in someone's arms for the first time in years.
And that terrified her.
Because what if he changed his mind?
What if he woke up and realized it was just a moment?
She couldn't handle that kind of heartbreak again. So she did what she always did: she left first.
Lyra stood now, walking slowly to her desk. She opened the drawer and pulled out a photograph — an old one, faded and slightly bent. Her and her mom at the beach. Her mom was smiling in the photo, really smiling, something she hadn't done much since Lyra was a kid.
It was taken the year before her dad left.
Lyra sighed and placed the photo down gently. Her fingers lingered on the edge of the frame, and she whispered, almost to herself, "I don't want to be like her."
The words caught in her throat.
She didn't want to push people away anymore. She didn't want to let fear keep writing her story.
A soft buzz pulled her out of her thoughts.
Her phone lit up on the dresser.
Zane.
Hey. Just wanted to say… last night meant more to me than I thought it would.
Her breath caught.
For a second, she didn't move. Just stared at the message like it might disappear if she blinked.
Then, slowly, her lips curved into a faint, disbelieving smile.
Maybe he felt it too.
Maybe she hadn't imagined it.
She sank back onto the bed, clutching the phone to her chest. The wall around her heart didn't come crashing down — not yet. But a crack had formed. A real one.
And maybe… just maybe… she was ready to let someone through.