PEACE
VIYANA SINCLAIR
I sat on the bed, hugging my knees to my chest, while my eyes stayed fixed on him lying on the floor beside the bed, one hand behind his head and the other resting on his stomach, staring up at the ceiling like it held answers to all the problems I kept creating in his life.
The room was quiet except for the soft sound of the night breeze slipping through the half-open window, and through it, I could see the stars scattered across the dark sky, shining so peacefully as if the world itself had no worries.
I let out a long breath and threw my head back dramatically.
“I am not getting sleep,” I whined, already knowing he would not care about my suffering.
Without even turning to look at me, he replied in that same calm, tired voice, “Just lie down and close your eyes.”
I clicked my tongue in irritation, offended by how simple he made it sound, as if sleep was some obedient creature that would come just because I politely invited it.
I stared at him for a moment, and then, a mischievous thought settled there beautifully.
Slowly, I got down from the bed and walked toward him, then settled down beside him on the floor like I paid rent there.
He turned his head and narrowed his eyes at me immediately, already suspicious of my existence.
That was my sign to continue.
“Let’s go somewhere out,” I said with complete seriousness.
His eyes widened in disbelief.
Without saying a word, he grabbed his phone from beside him, unlocked it, and shoved it right in front of my face.
“It’s 1 am Viyana,” he said, his voice carrying the exhaustion of a man who had been personally victimized by me for too long.
I looked at the glowing screen for exactly two seconds before groaning loudly and looking back at him with mock anger.
“So?” I asked dramatically. “The moon is awake. The stars are awake. I am awake. Why are you acting like I am committing a crime?”
“Go and sleep,” he said, closing his eyes again like ending the conversation was as easy as shutting his eyelids.
I stared at him for one full second in disbelief before I grabbed his arm and shook it, determined to ruin whatever peace he was trying to protect.
“Let’s go somewhere,” I said again, dragging each word like a child asking for candy she had already decided she was getting.
He let out a deep groan, the kind that came from the soul, and slowly sat up, pushing his messy hair back with tired fingers as he looked at me like I was the biggest punishment the universe had personally assigned to him.
“Where?” he asked, clearly hoping I would finally run out of ridiculous answers.
“Somewhere,” I said. “Just… a ride with no destination.”
For a moment, he simply stared at me.
Then he shook his head slowly, complete disappointment written all over his face like he was questioning every life choice that had brought me into his house.
I ignored that look completely.
I stood up dramatically, walked to the table like a woman on an important mission, took his bike keys into my hand, and turned toward the door with full confidence.
“If you are not coming,” I announced, holding the keys like a threat, “then I will ride the bike alone.”
His eyes widened instantly.
“You won’t even survive the first speed breaker,” he said flatly.
“Wow. Such little faith in your legally married wife.”
“Such strong survival instincts,” he corrected.
I smirked and moved closer to the door anyway.
“Ghosts will be roaming on the roads now,” he said, trying one last time to stop me.
I opened the door slightly and looked back at him with complete seriousness.
“Then let’s be one of them,” I said. “Come. Let’s go.”
For a second, silence filled the room.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
And then he sighed.
That long, defeated sigh that meant he had already lost the battle.
He stood up slowly, rubbing his face like he needed strength from another dimension to deal with me.
“One day,” he muttered while walking toward me, “you are going to be the reason I lose all my remaining sanity.”
I grinned brightly and handed him the keys.
“Not one day,” I said proudly. “That already happened.”
He glared at me one last time, the kind of glare that held absolutely no real anger anymore, and just like that, we stepped out of the house together into the quiet of the sleeping night.
The streets were empty, the world wrapped in a strange kind of peace that only existed after midnight, when even the city seemed to breathe slower.
I followed him like an excited child as he walked toward the bike, trying—and failing—to hide the ridiculous amount of happiness bubbling inside me over something as simple as a night ride.
Maybe it was simple for others, but for me, moments like this felt rare, like stolen pieces of life I had forgotten I was allowed to have.
He sat on the bike, still muttering something under his breath about how I was a walking disaster, and I climbed onto the seat behind him.
“Let’s go,” I said with far too much enthusiasm for one in the morning, my voice bright against the silence of the road.
He didn’t reply immediately.
Instead, he adjusted the rear-view mirror slowly—just enough.
Just enough for him to see my face.
And for me to notice that he was looking.
For one small second, our eyes met through that tiny mirror, and something in my chest stumbled so suddenly that I forgot how to breathe properly.
He said nothing.
Just started the bike.
The engine came alive beneath us, breaking the silence, and the vibration ran through the cold night air.
“You’ve never gone on midnight rides before?” he asked, his voice slightly louder over the sound of the bike and the wind cutting through the quiet roads.
I smiled to myself as the cold night air hit my face, brushing against my skin like freedom itself, making me feel lighter than I had in days. I looked at the empty streets passing by, the city looking softer somehow under the streetlights, less cruel, less loud.
“No,” I said honestly. “Never.”
Not like this.
Not with someone.
Not with my heart feeling strangely full and painfully afraid at the same time.
I had spent so much of my life surviving that I had forgotten how living was supposed to feel.
And right now, sitting behind him in the middle of the night with nowhere to go and nowhere I wanted to be except here—it felt dangerously close to happiness.
“You?” I asked, leaning slightly forward so he could hear me properly.
“I’ve gone multiple times,” he said. “Mostly when I couldn’t sleep. I would ride to the beach around four in the morning and wait there for the sunrise.”
“But not like this,” he added after a pause.
My fingers tightened slightly on the back of his shirt.
“Not like this?” I asked softly.
He was quiet for a moment, the road stretching ahead of us.
Then he said, quieter this time, “Not with someone sitting behind me and talking nonstop like a radio I can’t switch off.”
I gasped dramatically, offended.
“Wow. Romance is truly dead.”
A small laugh escaped him—soft, brief, but real.
And somehow, hearing that laugh in the middle of the sleeping city felt more beautiful than the stars above us.
I leaned forward until my forehead rested against the back of his shoulder, my hands clutching his shirt and I closed my eyes for a moment, allowing myself to stay there without saying anything, because sometimes silence held more truth than words ever could.
There was no teasing between us now, no playful arguments, no unnecessary jokes to hide what we were feeling—just the quiet sound of the bangles softly clinking against my wrist, the warmth of his body standing so close to mine, and the steady rhythm of his breathing that somehow made my restless heart calm down.
I had always thought love would be something loud, something dramatic, something that arrived like a storm and made itself impossible to ignore, but being there with him, I realized that maybe love was much simpler than that.
Maybe love was hidden inside ordinary things—inside red glass bangles wrapped carefully in old newspaper, inside a helmet bought after a silly argument, inside someone remembering a passing sentence you had once spoken without thinking it mattered, and inside the way a person stayed.
I stayed there for a little longer, because moments like this frightened me more than pain ever had, not because they were painful, but because they were beautiful, and beautiful things always made me afraid that life would take them away too soon.
I was afraid that happiness was only visiting me and would leave without warning, afraid that peace like this was too rare to trust, and afraid that if I allowed myself to love this deeply, losing it would destroy me in ways I would never recover from.
But at that moment, with my forehead resting against him and his quiet presence holding me together in ways he probably did not even realize, I understood something I had been trying to avoid for a very long time.
For the first time in years, I was not thinking about surviving.
I was thinking about staying.
I was thinking about a future.
And in that future, somehow, every road led back to him.
“Don’t you dare sleep now,” he said, moving his shoulder.
I let out a slow breath and blinked quickly, forcing back the sting in my eyes before it could turn into tears. I hated crying in front of him like this, especially when he always looked at me like he could see through every excuse I tried to make.
“I’m not sleeping,” I muttered, rubbing my face once and trying to sound normal, even though my chest still felt too full with everything I had been holding inside.
He slowed the bike and pulled over near the corner of a large bridge where the city lights stretched endlessly beneath us like stars that had fallen to the ground.
He turned off the engine, and for a moment, only silence remained between us, along with the distant sounds of traffic and the wind rushing past.
We both climbed off the bike, and I followed him without asking where we were going, because somehow with him, I had stopped needing explanations for everything.
We walked toward the edge of the bridge slowly, side by side, and when I stood there and looked down, the whole city opened beneath us—buildings glowing under the night sky, headlights moving like tiny rivers of light, people somewhere down there living ordinary lives while mine felt like it had completely changed.
The wind brushed past my face, carrying away some of the heaviness inside me.
I slowly turned to look at him, the city lights stretching endlessly behind him while the cold wind moved softly through his hair, and for a few seconds I simply stood there watching him, as if I was trying to memorize this exact version of him before life found another way to change everything again.
There was something about moments like this that made everything feel too honest, because there were no distractions, no teasing, no arguments, and no walls left to hide behind—just him standing beside me, just me standing beside him, and all the things we were both feeling but still struggling to name.
My fingers moved before my thoughts could stop them, and slowly, almost nervously, I reached for his hand and slipped mine into it, holding it gently at first, as if even after everything that had happened between us, I was still asking for permission to stay this close.
The warmth of his hand wrapped around mine instantly, steady and real, and the moment he looked at me, my breath hitched so suddenly that it almost embarrassed me, because somehow something as simple as holding his hand felt more intimate than all the words we had spoken and even more vulnerable than the kiss we had shared.
A kiss could be explained away as emotion, as a moment that got too intense, as something impulsive that happened because two people forgot themselves for a second—but this was different, because this was quiet, this was deliberate, and this was a choice.
His fingers slowly curled around mine, holding my hand back instead of simply letting me hold his, and that small action sent something warm through me.
I moved a little closer to him until there was no space left between us, and I gently wrapped my arms around his, holding onto him in the quietest way possible, before leaning my head against his shoulder as we both stood there looking ahead.
For a moment, I let myself simply exist there.
Beside him.
With him.
And it felt unreal.
Sometimes I still looked at him and wondered how this man—this stubborn, emotionally constipated, annoyingly caring man—had somehow become the safest place in my life.
How someone I once pointed a gun at had become the person I wanted to hold onto the most.
I smiled faintly to myself at the ridiculousness of it all.
The beautiful sky above me.
This unreal man beside me.
And this strange, terrifying happiness inside my chest.
“Viyana,” he called softly.
I raised my gaze and looked at him, and for a second I forgot how to breathe, because there was something different in his eyes.
“Yes?” I asked, my voice softer than I intended.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, looking at me in a way that made it impossible to laugh it off.
For a second, I just stared at him.
And then butterflies erupted so violently inside my stomach that I had to chuckle just to survive the embarrassment of it.
“I thought you were going to propose or something,” I said, trying to sound casual.
He smiled softly, but my own thoughts were already running in circles.
Beautiful?
Me?
In this messy bun that looked like it had survived a natural disaster, wearing his oversized shirt and these ridiculous baggy pants?
I looked like someone who had lost a fight with life and somehow won a husband instead.
I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously.
“Which angle exactly am I looking beautiful from?” I asked.
He let out a quiet laugh, shaking his head.
“I’m serious.”
I looked down at myself dramatically.
“I look like a patient who escaped from her own hospital room.”
He smiled again, but this time there was something softer in it.
“No,” he said quietly. “You look like peace.”