Three days later, Mikha stood in the middle of her apartment holding a trash bag and a box she hadn't decided the purpose of yet.
Five days.
Five days since she walked out of Aiah's hotel room.
Five days since that night that had no business lingering the way it did.
She hadn't heard from Aiah since the polite text that came an hour after she left.
Did you get home okay?
And Mikha had replied the same way someone would reply to a coworker.
Yeah. Thanks.
Polite.
Neutral.
As if they hadn't just spent hours ripping open three years of silence.
As if they hadn't stood inches apart in a hotel room, lips brushing before both of them forced themselves to stop.
The last five days had been a blur.
Mikha had thrown herself into distractions like someone trying to outrun their own brain.
Work meetings.
A&R scouting calls.
Two therapy sessions instead of one.
And—most shocking of all—
The gym.
Twice.
Jhoanna had nearly fainted when she heard that.
"Mercury must be in retrograde," Jhoanna had said dramatically.
Maybe it was.
Because none of it had worked.
Her mind was a traitor.
Every quiet moment it wandered back.
To Aiah.
To the way she spoke that night—honest in a way Mikha had never heard before.
To the softness in her eyes when she admitted things she'd never said out loud.
To her stupid, familiar smile.
To her lips.
Mikha exhaled sharply and tossed a stack of old magazines into the trash bag.
"Focus," she muttered to herself.
Because the reality still existed.
Aiah had asked for a divorce.
That hadn't magically disappeared just because they almost kissed.
An almost kiss didn't rewrite paperwork.
It didn't undo the reason Aiah had flown across the world.
And yet—
Mikha's brain kept circling the same question.
Then why did it feel like that?
She shook the thought away and grabbed the cleaning spray from the counter.
If she was going to spiral, she might as well be productive.
Spring cleaning.
The kind where you empty everything out, wipe everything down, start fresh.
Her therapist would probably call it symbolic.
Mikha started with the living room.
Old records stacked by the turntable.
