C8 Unbirdled Desires

The weekend crept in quietly, like a breeze through a cracked window subtle but present. For the first time in weeks, I slept in on a Saturday. No alarms, no blinking notifications, no relentless thoughts dragging me into consciousness. Just sunlight filtering through the cream curtains and the faint hum of traffic down below.

I lay in bed for a long while, letting the stillness settle into my bones. The past few weeks had been intense emotionally, mentally, even physically. Between Bishop’s confusing warmth and coldness, Lauren’s increasingly hushed conversations on her phone, and Damien’s unexplained disappearance, everything around me felt like it had a hidden meaning. And yet, all I wanted was to press pause.

Lauren knocked gently on my bedroom door before poking her head in.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she teased. Her messy bun was perched high on her head, and she wore a hoodie that nearly reached her knees. “I made pancakes.”

“You made pancakes?” I asked, raising a skeptical brow. “You only cook when you’re avoiding something.”

She grinned and disappeared back into the kitchen. I rolled out of bed, pulled on an oversized tee, and padded out barefoot to join her.

The kitchen smelled of cinnamon and syrup, the pan still sizzling lightly as she poured another dollop of batter. She was humming something soft and unrecognizable and for the first time in days, there was peace in our shared space.

“You okay?” I asked, taking a seat on the barstool.

She shrugged, flipping the pancake. “Yeah. Just… tired of pretending I’m not tired.”

I gave a small smile. “I get that.”

We didn’t say much else, and we didn’t need to. The silence between best friends is a language all on its own comforting, layered, unspoken.

After breakfast, I curled up with my laptop on the couch. I wasn’t working, not really. I was just… looking. Scrolling through blogs about remote getaways, peaceful lakeside cabins, small towns with antique bookstores and farmers’ markets. Places that felt untouched by noise. Places that didn’t carry the tension of steel offices and men with unreadable eyes.

Lauren glanced at me from the dining table where she was flipping through a magazine.

“You still thinking about taking that break?” she asked.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. Even if it’s just a weekend.”

“Did Bishop ever say why he turned it down?”

I shook my head. “He just… said the timing wasn’t right. But he looked more conflicted than strict.”

Lauren leaned back in her chair and studied me. “You care about him.”

It wasn’t a question. And I didn’t deny it.

“I do,” I whispered. “But I don’t think I should.”

She frowned. “Then don’t.”

“I wish it were that simple.”

We fell quiet again, but not in a heavy way. It was like standing at the edge of something of truth, maybe. Of choices.

Later that afternoon, I pulled out my journal and wrote. Not a letter, not a complaint, not a resignation. Just thoughts. Honest, tangled ones. About how I felt when Bishop called me by my first name. About how I kept replaying the look in his eyes when he softened. About how I wasn’t sure if I was falling for a man who was still halfway in love with a past he couldn’t forget.

But there was something else, too something I hadn’t written down yet. A seed of curiosity. About Damien. About the tension I saw flicker in Bishop’s jaw whenever his name came up. About why Lauren had started locking her phone screen when I walked by.

Everyone was hiding something. Maybe even me.

And yet, that Saturday was calm. Maybe too calm.

As the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky shifted from pale blue to fire-tinged gold, I told myself I’d enjoy this silence while it lasted.

Because something told me it wouldn’t last much longer.

I closed the balcony door softly behind me, the glass cool beneath my fingertips. The warmth inside the apartment was comforting, but a restless tingle crept along my skin the way it sometimes does before a storm, even when the skies are clear.

Maybe I was overthinking. It wouldn’t be the first time my imagination played tricks on me. Still, I made a mental note to mention the figure on the neighboring balcony to Lauren in the morning. If Damien was nearby, I needed to know. Not just for myself, but for her too.

I padded to the kitchen and filled a glass of water, drinking slowly while leaning against the counter. My eyes drifted to the envelope I had stashed by the fruit bowl the printed request I’d handed Bishop. I hadn’t tossed it. I hadn’t shredded it. Somehow, it felt unfinished.

His rejection had been clear but not cruel. Almost… hesitant. As if he was fighting with himself. But what was he fighting for? To protect the company’s image? Or something else entirely?

A part of me had hoped he’d change his mind, even just a little. But men like Bishop King didn’t change their minds easily. They stood behind their walls, watching, calculating. Feeling in silence.

Still, there had been a flicker in his eyes that day. Something I recognized. Not weakness, but softness.

Lauren always said I was too good at spotting cracks in people. "You look for the broken pieces like they’re secrets to be kept,” she once told me. “But not everyone wants to be fixed.”

I turned off the kitchen light and wandered to the small bookshelf by the hallway. My fingers traced over book spines like old friends. A romance novel, half-read. A poetry collection. A true crime memoir Lauren had begged me to finish. My journal sat beneath them, peeking out slightly. I slid it free and carried it to the couch.

Sitting cross-legged, I flipped through the pages scrawled notes, half-thoughts, little poems, dreams I didn’t dare speak aloud. The last entry was from weeks ago, right before I started work. Before everything began unraveling and re-threading itself into something I still didn’t understand.

I picked up a pen and began writing.

“Maybe peace isn’t the absence of chaos. Maybe it’s knowing who you are when the world gets too loud. Maybe it’s making space for questions that don’t have answers yet.”

I paused. It was something my mother once said to me during a rough year in college. I missed her terribly, even if I didn’t say it out loud. She always knew how to quiet the noise in my head.

Another thought came.

“And maybe some people aren’t storms to avoid. Maybe they’re the kind you walk into because something in you wants to feel the rain.”

I closed the journal slowly.

The quiet surrounded me again, but this time it felt different.

Like something was coming.

And somehow, I already knew I wouldn’t be the same once it did.