BRUNCH

I woke up with a start the next morning, the remnants of the previous night clinging to me like shadows.

The room was bathed in morning light, but it did little to chase away the haze of my thoughts. I lay still, staring at the ceiling as memories of Caspian flooded back—his voice, his touch, the intensity in his eyes. It played in an endless loop in my mind, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake it.

‘What have I done?’ The question that had lingered since I first arrived in Washington once again echoed in my head. “What have I done?” I mumbled it, thinking maybe saying it out loud would make me stop doing what I was doing.

It was one of the worst feelings—to do something in the heat of the moment and then question or regret it in the days that followed. For the last three days, I had been grappling with this, my interactions with Caspian and the other brothers replaying incessantly in my mind.

Sitting up, I ran my hands through my disheveled hair, trying to ground