The Things We Pretend Not to Feel
By the following afternoon, the rain had finally stopped.
Edinburgh looked washed clean beneath pale winter sunlight, the streets still damp from the storm while thin layers of snow clung stubbornly to rooftops and alleyways hidden from the sun. The city had regained its rhythm again. Cafés buzzed with conversation, buses rolled through crowded streets, and music drifted through open pub doors as people escaped the cold.
Inside Blackwater House, however, things felt strangely quieter.
Not around Margaret, obviously. She spent most of the morning loudly criticizing the heating system and arguing with a delivery driver over missing bread.
But between Clara and Elias, something had shifted after the previous night.
Not badly.
If anything, the opposite.
And that was exactly the problem.
Clara sat near the dining room window pretending to read while secretly failing to focus on a single sentence. Every few minutes, her attention drifted toward Elias across the room, where he sat reviewing photographs on his laptop with frustrating concentration.
The worst part was that he seemed completely normal.
Calm. Composed. Unaffected.
Meanwhile, Clara had spent nearly all morning replaying the way he said her name before going upstairs last night like some emotionally unstable teenager in a romance film.
Which was deeply irritating.
“You’re staring again,” Margaret said casually while placing fresh coffee beside her.
Clara nearly jumped. “I’m reading.”
“You’ve been on the same page for twenty minutes.”
Clara looked down at the book in betrayal.
Margaret followed her gaze toward Elias before smiling with unbearable satisfaction. “Ah,” she said softly. “Psychological collapse.”
“There is no collapse.”
“Of course not.”
Clara lowered her voice immediately. “Can you please stop acting like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like we’re in some tragic love story.”
Margaret considered that thoughtfully. “You’re right,” she admitted. “This has slightly more emotional repression.”
Clara groaned quietly into her coffee.
Across the room, Elias looked up briefly. “Should I be concerned?”
“Yes,” Clara answered immediately.
“No,” Margaret said at the same time.
Elias looked unsurprised by this contradiction and returned calmly to his photographs.
Margaret leaned closer toward Clara afterward. “You know what your problem is?”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“You think feelings become dangerous the moment you acknowledge them.”
Clara stared at her for a second.
“That was annoyingly accurate.”
Margaret smiled proudly. “I raised three emotionally incompetent sons. I recognize avoidance when I see it.”
Before Clara could respond, Elias stood and crossed toward them.
“I’m heading out for a few hours,” he said while pulling on his coat.
Margaret looked offended immediately. “You just sat down.”
“I’ve been working all morning.”
“That barely counts as living.”
Elias ignored her and glanced toward Clara instead. “Do you still need to replace your suitcase?”
She blinked in surprise. “Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”
“You forgot your suitcase broke?”
“A lot has happened.”
A faint smile touched his face briefly.
“There’s a luggage shop near Princes Street,” he said. “I can show you where it is.”
Margaret looked ready to explode from satisfaction.
Clara noticed immediately. “Do not make a face right now.”
“I’m making no face.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m simply witnessing character development.”
Elias sighed like a man enduring lifelong punishment.
An hour later, Clara found herself walking beside him once again through the busy streets of Edinburgh.
The city felt different now compared to the night they first met. Less lonely somehow. Familiar in small ways. Clara had started recognizing street corners, cafés, bookstores, and the distant sound of church bells echoing through the old streets.
But what unsettled her most was realizing Blackwater House had also started feeling familiar.
And Elias along with it.
“You’ve been quiet today,” he observed as they crossed a busy intersection.
Clara glanced toward him carefully. “You noticed?”
“You’re usually louder.”
“That’s rude.”
“It’s observational.”
She smiled despite herself before looking ahead again.
Truthfully, she didn’t know how to act around him anymore.
The easy excuse of being strangers had started disappearing. Every conversation between them seemed to uncover something deeper than either intended. And Clara wasn’t sure whether that terrified her or comforted her more.
Possibly both.
They reached the luggage shop a few minutes later. Clara found a replacement suitcase while Elias wandered silently nearby pretending not to judge her terrible taste in travel bags.
“You hate this one,” she accused while holding up a dark green suitcase.
“I said nothing.”
“You made a face.”
“I absolutely did not.”
“You looked emotionally disappointed.”
“That color is aggressive.”
Clara laughed softly. “It’s a suitcase, not a political statement.”
“It still feels confrontational.”
Eventually she chose a simple black one mostly because Elias looked visibly relieved by it.
When they stepped back outside, afternoon sunlight had already begun fading slowly toward evening. Cold wind drifted through the city again while crowds thickened along Princes Street.
Clara adjusted her scarf against the cold. “Thanks for helping.”
“You would’ve bought the green one.”
“I still think it had personality.”
“It looked like it wanted attention.”
She laughed again, and Elias shook his head slightly like he was trying not to smile.
Then Clara noticed something across the street that made her pause.
A jewelry store window glowed warmly beside the sidewalk, engagement rings sparkling beneath soft golden light.
Her chest tightened unexpectedly.
Five months ago, she and Daniel had spent an entire afternoon inside a store like that choosing wedding bands.
For a moment, the memory hit hard enough to silence everything else around her.
Elias noticed immediately.
“What happened?”
Clara looked away from the window slowly. “Nothing.”
He followed her gaze anyway.
Understanding crossed his face almost instantly.
Neither spoke for several seconds.
People moved around them while traffic rolled slowly through the wet streets nearby.
Finally Clara exhaled quietly. “It’s strange,” she admitted. “I thought seeing things like that would destroy me.”
“And now?”
She thought about it honestly.
“Now it just feels far away.”
The words surprised even her.
Elias studied her carefully. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“I know.”
But part of her still felt guilty about it.
As they continued walking, Clara noticed how naturally Elias slowed his pace whenever crowds thickened, always making sure she stayed beside him without mentioning it directly. The realization felt oddly intimate.
At one point, a sharp gust of wind rushed through the street, sending icy air around them. Clara instinctively pulled her coat tighter.
Without saying anything, Elias reached out and adjusted her scarf more securely around her neck.
The movement was simple.
Brief.
Completely instinctive.
But the moment his fingers brushed lightly against her skin, everything inside Clara seemed to stop.
Elias froze too.
For one suspended second, neither moved.
The city blurred quietly around them.
Then Elias stepped back immediately, his expression shifting almost imperceptibly.
“Sorry,” he said softly.
Clara swallowed.
“No, it’s okay.”
But her heartbeat had already betrayed her completely.
They continued walking afterward, though the silence between them had changed again.
Warmer now.
More dangerous.
And Clara suddenly realized the real problem wasn’t that she was beginning to fall for Elias.
It was that part of her suspected he was beginning to fall for her too.