For three days, they disappeared.
No cameras. No tabloids. No screens.
Adrian rented a small cottage at the edge of a sleepy coastal town two hours from the city. It was off-season—no tourists, no press, just the ocean's hush against weatherworn cliffs. Evelyn took two personal days, the first she'd used in over a year. She didn't tell anyone where she was going.
Neither of them had packed much. Just enough for stillness.
The first morning was awkward. Evelyn woke early, out of habit, and wandered onto the porch in a hoodie and socks, staring out at the fog. Adrian joined her an hour later, sleepy-eyed, balancing two mismatched mugs.
"I made coffee," he said. "It's… potentially lethal."
She sipped it anyway. "It's terrible."
"I warned you."
She smirked. "Points for trying."
By the second day, they'd settled into a rhythm. Mornings by the shore. Afternoons reading or cooking together. Evenings watching the stars in companionable silence. No scripts. No charts. Just two people learning how to be seen—without expectation or performance.
Evelyn was still adjusting to it. The simplicity. The way Adrian didn't press when she was quiet. How he didn't flinch when she absently traced the scar on his wrist from the accident.
"I used to think silence meant something was wrong," he admitted one night as they lay under a warm blanket on the back deck.
She turned her head toward him. "And now?"
"Now I think it's the only way we ever hear the truth."
She didn't answer. But she didn't look away either.
That night, Adrian had a nightmare. Evelyn woke to muffled whimpers and the rustling of sheets. At first she thought he was cold. Then she heard him gasp.
"No—stop—Kieran—don't go—"
She reached over instinctively, hand pressing to his chest.
"Adrian. You're dreaming. Wake up."
He bolted upright, breath ragged. Sweat soaked his shirt, eyes wild and lost.
"Kieran…" he whispered again, voice breaking.
Evelyn didn't ask questions. She just pulled him into her arms, holding him until the tremors eased.
"I can't forget the way he looked that day," Adrian said quietly, hours later, when the sky began to lighten. "My brother. I should've seen the signs. I should've—"
"You couldn't have saved him," Evelyn said softly, her voice tinged with a pain of her own. "You just think you should've. That's what grief does—it tricks you into reliving the moment, like you can rewrite it."
He was silent for a long time.
"You never talk about yours," he said.
"My grief?"
She nodded slowly. "It's different. Mine is clean. Finished. There's no one left to blame. Yours still needs forgiving."
"For what?"
"For being human."
On the third day, they returned.
The city was waiting for them—with flashing bulbs, questions shouted from sidewalks, and headlines that hadn't cooled. But something between them had changed. Solidified. Not as lovers, not yet. But as survivors. As believers in the fragile miracle of being understood.
Evelyn went back to the hospital.
Adrian returned to set.
The world hadn't stopped for their stillness.
But they had.
And it made all the difference.