As the day stretched on, Maya felt weighed down by a strange, melancholic heaviness that she couldn’t seem to shake. The hours drifted by in a blur as she secluded herself in her room, attempting to lose herself in a book, but the words only blurred together on the page, refusing to hold her attention. She finally tossed the book aside with a sigh, feeling restless and unable to find relief from the persistent ache in her chest.
When she decided to take a shower, hoping the warm water would soothe her, it only seemed to stir her emotions further. As she stepped under the stream, memories from the night before surfaced, the way Tay had looked at her, the warmth of his touch, the intensity that lingered in the space between them. The memories made her heartbeat race, and yet they brought a
