The air in the car was a thick, unspoken thing coated in unshed words and old glances left hanging in limbo. The engine humd beneath them like a low growl, just loud enough to fill the silence, but not nearly enough to drown it.
Stefan gripped the steering wheel like it was the last solid thing in his world, his knuckles pale under the strain. Beside him, the doctor cool, contained, professionally poised sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her gaze was fixed out the window, but Mara could feel the tension in the way her shoulders held themselves a little too still.
In the back seat, Mara exhaled slowly. The silence was killing her—too heavy, too loud. Like sitting inside a vacuum that might burst if soone so much as breathed too hard. She smirked to herself. Ti to poke the bear.
"So... hey, Doctor," she said, casually, as if slicing through tension with a butter knife.
The woman blinked and shifted slightly in her seat. "I’m Eva," she said, her voice soft, laced with a warning that Mara, of course, ignored. "Call Eva."
Mara raised an eyebrow. Interesting. The formal veneer cracked just a little.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the edge of the front seats. "You know, Eva," she said, dragging the na with a kind of playful nace, "I don’t buy it. This tension between you and my brother? Doesn’t feel like work drama to ."
Stefan’s fingers clenched around the wheel. "Sis," he muttered, low, dangerous. "Drop it."
Mara grinned. "Hey, Eva—" she sings-songy her na. "Is my brother gay?"
Eva choked. Full-body kind of cough. Stefan’s foot jerked off the gas, and the car lurched forward for a breathless second before he caught it again.
"Stefania Morissette Shepherd, I’m not gay!" he snapped, his voice sowhere between exasperated and defensive, slamming the accelerator just a little too hard. The car surged forward, but the silence was broken now, and it was glorious.
Eva turned, slow, deliberate, eyes glinting with sothing unreadable. "Are you?"
Mara’s brows lifted. Oh? Now this was getting interesting.
Stefan shot a look at Eva, hurt and confused all wrapped up in one very human expression. "What does that an?"
Eva didn’t answer right away. She was watching him now, really watching him—not with clinical distance, but with sothing ssier. Sothing that had a history in it.
"I an," she said finally, her voice a thread pulled too tight, "we were together for what? Two years? And you never tried anything. Not once. No kiss, no drunken confession, no ’accidental’ hand on my thigh during a late night drive..."
Mara blinked. Damn. She hadn’t expected Eva to go there.
Stefan laughed once sharp and bitter. "Eva, I wanted to kiss you. God, I wanted to. Every single ti you leaned in close, every ti you smiled like you were challenging to cross a line. But I didn’t."
"Why not?" Eva whispered, almost like it hurt to ask.
"Because I respected you," he said, the words tumbling out in a rush like they’d been trapped for years. "Because I didn’t want to be another asshole doctor thinking he had a right to his colleague’s body just because there was chemistry. Because you mattered to more than a mont of lust."
Eva didn’t say anything, but her jaw flexed, her lips parting slightly like she wanted to—needed to say sothing back. Her hands were clenched in her lap now, fingers twisting together.
Stefan glanced sideways at her, eyes lingering a second too long on the curve of her cheek before turning back to the road.
"I wanted to ask you to be my girlfriend," he said, softer this ti. "But I got scared. And then that happens. And I thought maybe it was for the best."
Eva let out a soft, bitter laugh, shaking her head slowly. "And why didn’t you, Stefan? I tried—God, I tried. Wore that perfu you liked, sat too close on purpose, even pulled the ’oh no, I forgot my sweater’ move so you’d offer yours." She turned, eyes glittering with unshed tears. "I even tried to seduce you, Stefan. You wouldn’t even look at ."
Silence. Thick, heavy. The only sound was the tires spinning along the road, the world blurring past the windows like a life slipping away.
"Because I was waiting," Stefan finally said, his voice quiet, carved from regret. "If I’d asked you, Eva... it would’ve been forever. That wasn’t sothing I could jump into just because the tension was killing ."
He inhaled sharply, knuckles white on the wheel.
"I wanted to be sure. And I thought maybe... maybe one day, it would be clear. Then I walked in and saw you in bed with soone else Eva." His voice caught. "And in that mont, I knew. Forever wasn’t for us. So I kept my distance. I kept the boundaries, Eva. Out of respect. Out of love. And now you have your answer."
For a mont, she said nothing. Just sat there, blinking fast, as if the tears burning behind her eyes could be blinked away if she just focused hard enough.
And then, barely above a whisper: "What about now?"
Stefan flinched like she’d slapped him.
"Eva," he said, carefully, painfully. "Please. Let’s not do this. You’re my... you’re my very good friend. And that’s all we can be."
She turned to him, eyes wide, breath shaking. "Friends?" she repeated like the word was poison she couldn’t believe he was handing her. "Really, Stefan? What’s stopping you now? We’re not colleagues anymore. We’re not teens. We’re here. Right now. And you still can’t choose ."
He didn’t answer.
Because he couldn’t.
Not without tearing her apart.
Not without admitting that, deep down, the reason they’d never really begun was still true. Their values how they loved, and how they lived were too far apart. She wanted a life carved from spontaneity and freedom; he needed certainty and roots. No matter how deeply he cared for her, their worlds didn’t fit.
He clenched his jaw, the truth stuck in his throat like glass.
"Stop the car," Eva said suddenly, voice low but firm.
Stefan glanced at her. "Eva—"
"Stop the car."
There was no arguing with that tone.
With a reluctant sigh, he pulled over to the shoulder. The mont the car stilled, she unbuckled and pushed open the door.
"I’m sorry, Stef," she said, standing in the doorway, the wind catching in her hair. "I need so ti. I can’t sit here pretending this doesn’t hurt."
And then she was gone shutting the door, walking off into the dusk as the other cars slowly pulled over behind them.
Stefan didn’t move. Just stared at the road ahead, hands limp on the wheel, the weight of unspoken love pressing into his ribs.
"I’m sorry," Mara whispered from the back seat, voice thick with guilt. "I didn’t know it would escalate like that. I was just trying to break the silence."
Stefan gave a small, hollow laugh. "It’s okay, Stef. I was just trying to avoid the conversation. Guess it caught up with ."
She hesitated, then added, "When you said you had a crush on soone... I thought it was her."
His eyes didn’t leave the road. "So did I," he said.
And with that, he shifted gears and drove on, leaving behind sothing too fragile to salvage and maybe, too broken to ever truly let go.
She was gone.
Just like that.
Door shut. Footsteps fading. Hair whipping in the wind like a flag surrendering to sothing unsaid.
Stefan gripped the wheel, but he wasn’t driving anymore. Not really. The car moved forward, sure, but his mind had stayed back there where she stood on the side of the road, blinking back tears she didn’t want him to see.
What the hell was I thinking?
He wanted to scream. Punch the dashboard. Turn the damn car around and call out her na like so dramatic movie character who realizes too late that he let the one slip through his fingers.
But this wasn’t a movie. This was his life. And life didn’t cut to black with a kiss and swelling music. Life lingered in the aftermath. In the consequences. In all the things he didn’t say.
He could still hear her voice fragile and sharp all at once.
"Friends? Really, Stefan? What’s stopping you now?"
God, if she only knew.
He wanted her. He always had.
But love wasn’t just about want. It was about fit. And the truth no one ever liked to admit was that sotis, the people you burn for aren’t the ones who’ll build a life with you they’re the ones who’ll burn the house down with you inside.
He rembered her laugh at 2 a.m. in d school, loud and careless, like she didn’t believe in consequences. He rembered how she’d smoke a cigarette just to watch the smoke curl, how she’d dance barefoot at parties, say what she ant without dressing it up.
Eva lived on impulse. He lived on a structure.
She loved fast. He loved... carefully.
And yeah, maybe he was scared. Scared that if he let himself have her, he’d lose her. That it would end ssy and loud and cruel, and he’d spend the rest of his life walking around with her na like glass in his chest.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. Mara was quiet, eyes turned to the window, guilt radiating from her in soft waves. He didn’t bla her. She had only said out loud what he couldn’t even admit to himself.
I thought it was her.
So did he.
Until now.
Until it wasn’t.
Or maybe it still was, but not in the way it should be.
Stefan breathed in, slow and deep like he could exhale the ache. But it didn’t work. It never did.
So truths stick to your ribs, even when you starve them.
He kept driving, hands steady, heart anything but. Because now he knew:
He wasn’t avoiding the conversation.
He was avoiding the answer.
And that answer had just walked away.
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