Part 56
(Alex's POV)
The highway lights slid over her windshield in rhythmic flashes—white, gold, white, gold—like a pulse that didn't belong to her anymore.
She drove until the road turned narrow, lined with soaked fields and the smell of rust.
The anger had cooled into something quieter, more precise.
Each thought fitted into place like glass shards arranged into a mosaic: sharp, beautiful, deliberate.
He's scared of me now, she told herself. But fear can turn into trust if you give it the right story.
At a rest stop she parked beneath a flickering lamp, opened her laptop, and began to build that story.
New accounts. New names.
A sequence of messages that looked like concern, not obsession.
A handful of carefully chosen words that would land on public forums where fans whispered about Adrian's comeback.
She wouldn't touch him; she would shape the air around him instead.
If the world doubted Leah, Adrian would too.
And when he started to question her, Alex would be the quiet voice offering help—someone unseen, reasonable, familiar.
She typed for hours, the screen reflecting in her eyes:
gentle encouragements, harmless rumors, fragments of sympathy that would spread like smoke.
When she finally closed the laptop, the sky was paling.
She felt calm again.
Almost ordinary.
You'll reach for me soon, she thought. Not because I chase you… but because you'll think I'm the only one left who understands.
She started the car, the sound of the engine merging with the first morning birdsong.
Somewhere out there, the story she'd written was already beginning to breathe.