Chapter 6: Mira’s Restless Quiet

  Mira didn’t sleep that night.

  She y in bed with her arms over her eyes, trying not to remember how it felt. The table. Lena’s voice. The way her body had obeyed before her mind caught up.

  It wasn’t just that she came. It was that Lena made her.

  Without kissing her. Without undressing her. Without raising her voice or even changing her expression. She just... did it. Like Mira had already been hers from the start.

  She turned onto her side and buried her face in her pillow.

  God.

  She was never the type to be careless. Her friends knew her as sweet, a little forgetful, harmless. She didn’t do dangerous things. She didn’t sneak into hidden corners of the library and let someone—someone like Lena—touch her until she broke apart in silence.

  But now she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Every detail felt pressed into her skin. Lena’s voice against her ear. Her hand, warm and steady, never rushed. And Mira’s own breath—unsteady, trying to hold back but unable to stop anything.

  And the way Lena looked at her afterward.

  Like she’d just done something inevitable.

  ---

  The next day at css, Mira kept gncing over her shoulder. As if Lena might appear, even though they didn’t share any courses.

  She caught herself doodling Lena’s name once—then scribbled over it furiously, heart pounding.

  She told herself to be normal. Smile. Study. Answer messages. She avoided her friends and walked home in the rain, just to give her mind something else to hold.

  But the silence made it worse.

  When she finally opened her ptop that night, she saw a new message.

  From: Lena

  Session scheduled. Thursday. 6:30 p.m.

  Same room. Come prepared.

  No greeting. No signature.

  But Mira’s chest clenched all the same.

  She stared at the message, reading it again and again. It didn’t say anything suggestive. It didn’t have to.

  She knew what Lena meant by prepared.

  ---

  By Wednesday, Mira was a mess.

  Everything touched her wrong. Her clothes felt tight, her skin overly sensitive. The whisper of a breeze through the cssroom window made her blush. A professor said “focus” in a lecture, and Mira nearly choked on her water.

  She tried to journal it out that night, to make sense of it.

  She wrote:

  I don’t know what she’s doing to me.

  Then crossed it out.

  Then wrote:

  She hasn’t even kissed me. I don’t understand why I feel like this.

  And left that one.

  ---

  Thursday came too fast.

  Mira stood outside the library fifteen minutes early, wringing the sleeves of her hoodie.

  She could leave. She could email and say she was sick, or busy, or—

  Her phone buzzed.

  A one-word message.

  From: Lena

  Inside.

  Mira’s knees nearly gave out.

  She moved before she could think, slipping through the side entrance and heading toward the back room. The world narrowed with every step. The shelves, the low lights, the quiet weight of evening.

  When she reached the room, the door was ajar.

  And Lena was already there, sitting in the same seat. Perfectly still. Perfectly composed.

  As if she hadn’t done anything life-changing st time.

  Mira stepped in.

  “Close the door,” Lena said softly, without turning around.

  She did.

  The click echoed louder than it should have.

  And Mira stood there, trembling, staring at Lena’s face—wanting something and not knowing how to ask for it.