Page 21 of The Stuffing Situation

“We don’t know yet. But Ashar wants to see him. Soon.”

They left her mom’s house that afternoon.

The driveway was half-melted snow and gravel. Felix loaded their bags with calm precision, offered her mother a polite goodbye, and a perfect handshake.

Of course he did. Maya gave her mom a half-hug and a brittle smile.

“We’ll be back for Christmas,” she said.

She didn’t sayif he’s still hereout loud.

But shethoughtit. Hard.

* * *

Maya didn’t get in the car right away.

She stood at the edge of the driveway, her boots crunching half-frozen gravel, watching the soft plume of her breath dissipate in the cold. Behind her, Felix loaded the last bag into the trunk, his movements precise but unhurried, like someone trying not to disturb the air.

She looked at the house. At the pale curtains in her childhood bedroom window. At the half-buried garden gnome by the porch. Her mom’s wreath tilted slightly askew on the door.

Something in her chest clenched. This place had always been a reset button, messy, loud, predictably intrusive, but now it felt like it was watching her leave; it knew something she didn’t, or worse, it knew something she refused to admit.

Felix stepped beside her, his hands in the pockets of this borrowed flannel. He didn’t speak. He just stood there, breathing in rhythm with her, eyes following her gaze.

“I used to think the worst thing would be being alone in that house,” she murmured.

He glanced at her, gentle, waiting.

“But now…” She exhaled slowly. “I think the worst thing would be coming back here next time and pretending none of this happened.”

Felix didn’t flinch; he didn’t move, but the air shifted between them again, softer, heavier.

“I won’t ask you to pretend,” he said.

“I know.”

Silence stretched out, long and transparent and honest. Then he opened the passenger door, not like a man offering a ride, but someone offering her a choice.

The drive back to her apartment was quiet, not tense. Just muted.

Felix didn’t fill the silence. He stared out the window, one hand resting on the gear shift out of a habit he shouldn’t have had time to form. Every now and then, he glanced at her like he wanted to say something. But he didn’t.

The radio played low, a jazz station. Soft trumpet over static. Maya’s thoughts looped like a skipping record.

He’s changing.

He’s not supposed to.

He kissed me like he was real.

He’s not.

Except… he is.

Her apartment felt smaller than she remembered. Not cluttered, just compressed. Like the walls had drawn in while she was gone.

She stepped inside first and flipped on the lights. The glow of the room was faint, with a yellowed hue, and something was off.