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Aspen Briar has always known who she is.
At twenty-six, she is composed, precise, and trusted by people who cannot afford to be misunderstood. In quiet rooms and behind closed doors, she listens, she observes, she fixes what she can. Her boundaries are clear. Her life makes sense.
Until it doesn't.
New York introduces her to someone she cannot quite read. Someone who does not fit neatly into symptoms or solutions. Their conversations stretch longer than they should. Silences begin to mean more than words. And for the first time, Aspen starts to notice the things she has spent years ignoring.
The way her thoughts linger. The way her control slips, quietly, almost without warning.
She tells herself it is nothing.
But some feelings do not disappear just because you refuse to name them.
And some people make it impossible to pretend you do not feel at all.