Beneath the Surface

The morning sun filtered through the curtains of Mira's apartment, casting golden rays on the crumpled sheets and the scattered clothes from the night before. For the first time in a long time, Mira awoke with something foreign blooming in her chest—peace.

Noah lay beside her, still asleep, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. There was a vulnerability in his face when he slept, stripped of the walls he carefully constructed in his waking hours. Mira studied the lines of his jaw, the faint scar near his lip, the softness behind his strength.

She reached out, brushing her fingers gently against his arm. He stirred, eyes fluttering open to meet hers.

"You're staring," he murmured, voice husky from sleep.

"You snore," she replied with a soft smile.

He arched a brow. "Lies."

She laughed, and it sounded lighter than she expected. "Okay, fine. You don't. But you do hog the blanket."

"I was protecting it," he said, rolling onto his side. "From blanket thieves like you."

The banter faded into silence, the kind that didn't need filling. But then, reality crept back in—the job she no longer had, the tension with her family, the fact that this thing between them still lacked definition.

"I should get up," she whispered, glancing at the clock.

Noah caught her hand. "You don't have to run this time."

"I'm not running," she said, more to herself than to him. "I'm thinking. Planning. Figuring out how to piece things together again."

He nodded. "Then let's do it together."

Mira hesitated. "You know... this doesn't fix everything. We still argued. We still hurt each other."

"And we still care," he said firmly. "I'm not asking you to forget what's happened. I'm asking you not to give up on what could happen next."

Later that afternoon, Mira sat across from her younger sister at a quiet café. The air between them had been tense for weeks since Mira's return. But now, her sister looked at her with a glimmer of curiosity.

"You seem... different," she said.

"Different how?"

"Softer. Stronger, maybe. Happier?"

Mira stirred her coffee. "Maybe I just stopped pretending I have to do everything alone."

The words lingered, and her sister smiled, reaching across the table. "It's good to have you home, Mira."

And for the first time since the airport, since the firing, the heartbreak, the chaos—Mira felt it.

She belonged.

Not in the role she once thought defined her, not in a perfect plan—but in her own skin, her own story.

And with Noah, maybe even her own version of love.