The Price of Perception

PIPER’S POV

Time, I came to understand, did not always heal.

Sometimes, it only stretched the pain. It had been weeks since everything fell apart, and yet, nothing had changed.

If anything, the distance between Kellan and me had only grown more defined, more permanent, as though each passing day carved the separation deeper into something neither of us could undo.

He did not call.l He did not ask.