The quilt was heavier than it looked. Lena's fingers found a seam near the edge—tiny stitches, white thread against cream fabric, each one the same length. She pressed her fingertip into the ridge of it and felt the pattern bite back.
Across the room, Sebastian hadn't moved from the doorframe. His arms stayed folded. His wire-rim glasses caught the moonlight and turned opaque.
"You said the quilt was your grandmother's." Her voice came out rougher than she meant. She traced the stitch again, slower. "How long have you been sleeping with it?"
The silence stretched. Somewhere in the apartment, a clock ticked—or maybe it was the building settling, pipes cooling in the walls.
Then she saw it. His thumb. Pressed hard against his bicep, the knuckle gone white.
She waited. Didn't fill the space. Let him feel what it was like to be watched.
"Long enough to know you don't run it through the dryer." His voice was lower now—the same measured tone, but something underneath it. A floorboard giving way. "The heat breaks down the cotton. You hang it over the shower rod. Let it drip."
She could picture him doing it. Standing in his bathroom, lifting wet fabric, smoothing it over the rod with those careful hands. Alone. The image landed somewhere between her ribs and stayed there.
"You've had it since you were a kid." Not a question this time.
He didn't answer. His thumb stayed where it was.
Her hand was still on the quilt. She looked down at it—the faded pattern, the stitches her fingertip had memorized, the fabric worn threadbare in places where something heavy had rested for years. She wondered if he wrapped himself in it when he couldn't sleep. If he knew the weight by heart.
Her own breathing had changed. Slower. Deeper. Like her body had decided something her mouth wasn't ready to say.
The question surfaced before she could stop it. "How heavy is it?"
His thumb released. Just for a second—the blood rushed back into the knuckle—then pressed down again harder. "Heavy enough."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
She turned her head. The movement pulled the slip strap lower, but she didn't catch it this time. His eyes tracked the slide of silk and then snapped back to her face. Fast. Like he'd been caught at something.
"You're an architect," she said. "You measure things. You know exactly how much it weighs."
The clock ticked again. Or the pipes. The sound was smaller now, swallowed by the space between them.
"Eight pounds." His voice had gone rough at the edges. Not the controlled tone from before. Something rawer. "Maybe eight and a half when I was twelve and it felt like the only thing holding me down."
She saw it then. A kid in a too-quiet house, wrapping himself in linen and cotton because the weight was the only thing that told his body he was still here. The image was too sharp. Too close to something she recognized.
"I have a bottle of whiskey in my dressing room," she said. "Same one. Three years. I don't drink it. I just need to know it's there."
His arms stayed folded but his jaw shifted. Something moving behind his eyes that she couldn't name.
Her hand was still on the quilt. She didn't lift it.