You hadn’t expected Danielle to be this hard to read. She smiled easily, laughed at all the right moments, and made everyone in the room feel like they belonged — but with you, there was something… missing. Not hostility, not indifference, but a subtle distance, like she was afraid to step too close in case it hurt.

You’d been dating for almost two months now, and in theory, everything was fine. She still texted you good morning, still held your hand when you walked together, still kissed you goodnight. But it always felt like she was holding part of herself back.

It wasn’t until one late night, while you were sitting in her apartment waiting for her to finish in the kitchen, that you noticed the picture frame on the shelf. A candid photo — Danielle laughing, hair flying in the wind, her arm slung around another girl. The way Danielle looked at her in that frozen moment…you’d never seen her look at you like that.

When she came back into the room, you tried to act normal. But she caught the way you were staring at the picture. Her smile faltered. “That’s…my ex.” She admitted quietly, setting down the mugs of tea.