If Our Realities Intertwined

Nothing happened.

That's what Ira keeps telling herself.

Not when their eyes locked across the room, and neither of them looked away.
Not when she wrote Aira's name in the corner of her notebook without realizing.
Not when Aira held her hand for balance, she didn't need - and didn't let go right away.

Nothing happened.

Ira has always been certain of one thing:
She cannot love anyone.

It isn't fear.
It isn't heartbreak.
It's a fact.

She's dated girls. Felt things. Walked away. She knows how to stay detached. How to analyze instead of attaching. How to leave before anyone can stay.

Aira doesn't try to get close.

She just exists - steady, unreadable, almost intentional in the smallest ways.

And somehow, that's worse.

Because the more Ira tries to decode her, the more her own reactions stop making sense.

Her body moves before she thinks.
Her heart reacts before she allows it to.
Her control begins to fracture.

And if she's wrong about herself -
if she isn't as immune as she believed -

Then what else has she misunderstood?

Because this isn't about attraction.
It isn't about friendship.
It isn't even about love.
It's about what happens when you realize you might not be able to stop.
It's about what happens when the one thing you believed about yourself turns out to be wrong.

And when you lose the one truth you built yourself around -

You don't just fall.

You unravel.