He wasn't there today.
And it made her chest feel a little emptier, especially after the kind of day she'd had yesterday. Yesterday had been perfect—so much so that she'd blushed the entire time. Not just in passing, but through the whole day. That in itself was saying something.
Even after she'd come home and visited her aunt's place, the flush in her cheeks hadn't faded. She kept blushing like a schoolgirl with a secret. It wasn't until she finally got the courage to spill the whole story to her college best friend, and then to her university best friend, that the heat began to settle. She even went so far as to ask her sister in law for advice—just in case.
At the end of it all, after pacing the rooftop for nearly an hour and walking through every detail out loud, she'd returned indoors and glanced in the mirror. That's when she noticed—her cheeks weren't red anymore.
She laughed softly to herself then. For the longest time, she'd assumed it was just the blush she'd applied that morning. But she'd also known, deep down, that it was something else. A warmth from within. A feeling so real it painted her skin without asking permission.
She did miss him today. Regret tugged at her like a quiet wind.
But she also noticed a pattern: he never seemed to show up after they had one of those strange, awkward, almost-too-real encounters. And so a small voice in her wondered—
Was he avoiding her?
Maybe.
Probably.
Still, she smiled at the memory. Even in his absence, he left a little warmth behind.