Chapter 18: The Midnight Vigil
The museum exhibit had ended hours ago, and we had moved to a quiet cafe. Aman was in the middle of a story about his childhood, his face glowing under the amber streetlights, but I wasn't listening.
I kept glancing at my phone.
11:45 PM. 11:55 PM. "Ananya, you've checked your phone ten times in the last twenty minutes," Aman said, his voice laced with a mixture of amusement and concern. "If you're worried about the Architect's curfew, we should probably head back."
"No," I said, a sudden, rebellious spark lighting up in my chest. "Let's stay. One more coffee, Aman. Please."
I wanted to see it. I wanted to see if that flash of jealousy in the library was real or just a ghost. I wanted to know if I still had the power to move him, or if the "friendship" had truly turned his heart to stone.
12:15 AM. By the time Aman dropped me off at the gates, it was nearly 12:30 AM. My heart was thundering against my ribs as I walked up the marble steps. I expected the doors to be locked. I expected Advik to be standing in the foyer with a glass of scotch and a storm in his eyes, ready to roar about safety and disrespect.
Instead, the house was silent.
I pushed open the heavy front doors. The lights in the foyer were dimmed, save for a single lamp in the living room.
Advik wasn't pacing. He was sitting in a high-backed wing chair near the fireplace, which had long since burned down to cold ash. He wasn't holding a drink, and he wasn't looking at a file. He was just... sitting there, staring at the empty doorway.
He looked smaller than usual. The fearsome "Architect" looked like a man who had been waiting for a call that never came.
"I'm back," I whispered, my voice trembling.
Advik didn't jump. He didn't snap. He slowly turned his head toward me. The jealousy I had seen earlier had vanished, replaced by a profound, quiet sadness that made my stomach flip.
"You're late, Ananya," he said. His voice wasn't angry; it was tired. It was the voice of someone who had spent the last thirty minutes imagining the worst.
"I know. We lost track of time," I lied, stepping into the circle of light. "Are you... are you going to yell?"
Advik let out a soft, huffed breath that might have been a laugh in another life. He stood up, his joints popping from sitting still for too long.
"Why would I yell?" he asked, looking down at his shoes. "I'm just a friend, remember? Friends don't demand explanations. They just... they just worry."
He walked toward me, stopping just a few feet away. He didn't reach for me. He didn't try to reclaim his territory. He just looked at me with those sad, heavy eyes.
"I kept thinking about the rain," he murmured. "I kept thinking about the sound of the crash. Every minute after twelve felt like an hour of me failing to protect you."
"Advik, I—"
"It's fine," he interrupted gently, though the sadness in his expression deepened. "You're safe. That's all that matters. I'll see you at breakfast."
He turned and began to walk toward the stairs. There was no fire, no explosion, no possessive grip. Just a man walking away from the woman he loved because he had promised to be "just a friend."
I stood in the dark living room, watching him go. I had set a trap to catch a monster, but all I had found was a man who was quietly breaking apart to keep me happy. I had wanted him to lose his cool, but seeing his sadness felt a thousand times worse than his rage.
I had won the battle to stay out late, but as I stood alone in the silence, I felt like I had lost something much more important.