Silence had always made him restless. He filled it with words, gestures, anything to avoid the weight of it. But with her, silence was a weapon. She sat across from him, eyes calm, posture unhurried, and every second she said nothing felt like a thread tightening between them.
It wasn’t an awkward quiet—it was deliberate, the kind that left room for every thought you were trying not to have. She didn’t lean forward, didn’t touch his arm, didn’t even shift in her seat. She just let the moment breathe until the space between them felt impossibly loud.
The more she held back, the more he wanted her to break the stillness—to do something, anything. But she didn’t. And in that restraint, she had him completely. It dawned on him that if she had reached for him, it would have been a relief. But she wasn’t offering relief. She was offering anticipation.
By the time her lips finally curved into the faintest suggestion of a smile, it felt like a reward he hadn’t earned yet. And that, he realized, was exactly why he wanted more.