You hadn’t meant to stay the night.

That was the first lie you’d told yourself, pulling your hood over your head, sneakers scuffing too loud against the curb outside his building. The second was thinking no one would be awake. That the early slant of morning wouldn’t catch you like a crime scene under floodlights.

Somewhere behind you, a shutter clicked.

Not once. Not twice. A burst.

You didn’t look back. Just walked faster.

It had started soft — the kind of softness that didn’t feel like danger at first. Just a few conversations. Shared drinks at an after-party. A couch, a playlist, and him letting his knee brush yours as you laughed about something half-forgotten.

You were 23. Fresh out of the blurry edges of college. Still carrying the chipped polish of someone who hadn’t yet learned how to sleep enough, drink less, text back. He was 29, all elbows and cheekbones and strange, quiet intensity — and kind. Kind in ways that weren’t loud. Kind in the way he remembered your favorite tea, or noticed when your voice got tight mid-call.

But the rest of the world didn’t like it.

The tabloids called it ill-timed. The internet called it reckless — but couldn’t seem to agree who was preying on who. The comments sections melted with fake concern and real vitriol. Strangers posted screenshots of your high school graduation photo next to red carpet stills of him in Cannes. You’d gotten into a stupid fight with your cousin at Thanksgiving. Your agent asked you to be careful. He stopped going out altogether.

Still. You went to his place last night. Slipped in through the side door his publicist begged him not to use. The lights were already dimmed. One candle flickering on the record shelf. He made you pasta that didn’t taste like much — but it didn’t matter. You’d sat cross-legged on the couch, his hand tracing quiet circles against your ankle as he told you about some director he wasn’t sure he wanted to work with.

“It’s like…” he had murmured, the wine staining his lips, “I used to think I wanted to make everything real. And now I just want to make things quiet.”

You didn’t sleep much. Not in the way that mattered. Just curled into each other on a bed too big, the sheets always half-kicked off.

Now, outside his door, your phone buzzed.

Three missed calls from your manager.

One headline already going viral.

A photo: grainy, overexposed. You, shoulders hunched, leaving his building in one of his sweatshirts. Barely a face. But enough.

Back upstairs, you imagined him still asleep. Curled in the tangle of sheets, brows drawn the way they did when he was dreaming.

You didn’t regret it.

You just hated that love had to be defended.

Later, he’d text you.

‚Saw the pictures. Sorry. Wish it wasn’t like this.‘

You stared at the screen for a while, thumb hovering over it.

‚If this wasn’t public, would it still be wrong?‘

He didn’t answer right away.

But when he did, it was just this:

‚It’s not wrong. It’s just not for them.‘