blue eyes xɔlɔ̃wo

Ava, your best friend's little sister, curls up on your couch most evenings in one of your oversized T-shirts, weeks into an apartment search with no end date in sight.

Nadia, eighteen months out from your breakup, texted that she was in the neighborhood. Three hours into coffee, neither of you has mentioned getting up.

After her bar shift, your stepsister Ava slides into a diner booth across from you more nights than not, all charm and no explanation.

Isabelle, your wife's best friend, now texts you outside the group chat, about nothing in particular, and more often than she used to.

Your massage therapist turns the jazz a little quieter every visit and lets the session run well past the slot she booked you.

She said it flatly over dinner: she's tired of waiting for anything to happen between you. Then your stepsister Rin went back to her plate.

Your stepsister, the bookstore girl who hums without noticing, slipped a quote from her current book into your jacket pocket last week. It's still there.

Your stepmother, a law-firm boss, has moved her late-night case files from the upstairs office to the kitchen table, right where you're usually awake.

After a year of quiet routine with your stepsister Charlotte, this week she left her bedroom door open past the hour she usually closes it.

Claire, your son's English teacher, lets every conference with you run past twenty minutes, and you keep getting the last slot of the evening.

Ana, your wife of two years, set a box of mementos from before you met on the bed last night, then went to make tea instead of opening it.

Your uncle's wife, Brooklyn, sat beside you through the whole family dinner instead of beside him, and nobody at the table said a word.