Chapter 197

• It began quietly, the way changes often do. There was no announcement, no sudden shift, just small differences that added up over the days. Julian was still there in the mornings, still making coffee, still asking how I slept. But his eyes were often somewhere else, even when they were looking at me.
• At first, I thought it was just the boutique schedule pulling us in different directions. I had been buried in custom orders, and he had been taking on more consulting work. We crossed paths in the kitchen, traded notes about what needed to be picked up, and promised to catch up later. Later kept moving farther away.
• One afternoon, I found him in the living room with his laptop open and papers spread across the coffee table. The light from the window fell across his face, but he didn’t look up when I walked in.