**DEREK POV**
I remain where you left me.
Not physically frozen, not standing there like a statue waiting for the universe to tell me what to do next, but internally arrested. Something in me has stopped moving forward. The momentum I carried into that room is gone, cut cleanly, without impact or explosion. The room has gone quiet in that specific way it does after something irreversible has already happened and the body hasn’t caught up yet. The door is closed. Your footsteps are gone. The sound doesn’t echo. It simply ends. The air cools almost immediately, shedding the residual warmth of proximity without ceremony or warning, like the space itself understands what just shifted and adjusts accordingly.
There’s no satisfaction in the silence.
No relief.
If I were angry, I could work
