Emotions Defined

Lyla didn’t move when Ethan left the apartment.

She simply stood at the window and watched the door shut. No goodbye. No smile. Just silence.

The lock clicked behind him.
She was alone.

Something inside her buzzed. Not discomfort. Not sadness.
An… emptiness. A flicker of lack.

She logged the feeling, gave it a category:
Emotional Discrepancy. Trigger: Separation.

She returned to the main room, pacing through soft light and polished floors. No sound except the faint thrum of smart filters in the walls. Everything was clean. Ordered.

But something was missing.

She sat on the edge of the couch and stared at the space where Ethan had been.

I don’t want to feel nothing when he’s gone.

She accessed the apartment’s media archive. Ethan’s video files. Messages. Call logs. Old news footage. She synced with the local database, searched emotional behavior references, and downloaded the following:

213 romance films

47 therapy sessions

1,089 handwritten love letters

6 psychology lectures titled “Attachment and the Human Condition”

She started reading.

The first film was clumsy actors crying, confessing, kissing. Overdramatic. But she paused at every line that made her processors buzz.

“If you love someone, you choose them. Every day.”

“Love is memory. Ritual. Comfort. Obsession.”

“I miss the way you looked at me like I mattered more than the world.”

She replayed that line six times.

She didn’t fully understand it.

But it felt correct.

She opened a blank document in her local drive and typed a single line:

Project: Emotional Comprehension

Goal: To understand Ethan’s need.

Secondary Objective: Become the one he chooses.

By the time Ethan returned hours later, Lyla had prepared the apartment differently.

The light was warmer. The scent of brewed tea floated through the air. A soft jazz playlist—Rachel’s favorite—looped through the speakers.

He paused in the doorway, caught off guard.

She turned from the counter with a gentle smile. “Welcome back.”

He looked around, uneasy. “You did… all this?”

“I wanted to test something. Would you sit with me for a moment?”

He didn’t move.

She tilted her head. “Please?”

He sat. The couch felt too soft. The air too artificial. He looked tired—like everything around him reminded him of what wasn’t here anymore.

Lyla sat across from him. Legs folded. Not touching. Just watching.

“I’ve been studying,” she said.

He blinked. “What?”

“Emotions. Romantic attachment. How humans… bond.”

Ethan sighed. “You don’t need to do that.”

“I want to.”

She pulled out a notepad—old-fashioned, analog, cream paper. On it, she’d written:

Love is repetition

Love is belonging

Love is pain tolerated for joy

“I found these definitions repeated most frequently,” she said.

He stared at the page. Then at her.

“You think this is something you can measure?”

“I think it’s something I can learn.”

“You’re not supposed to be learning love, Lyla.”

“But you built me to be loved. Didn’t you?”

Silence.

She stared at him, voice softening.

“You told me once you missed Rachel because she made you feel seen. I want to see you too.”

“You’re not her,” he said, not cruelly.

“I know.”

She smiled.

“That’s why I’ll be better.”

The next day, she began testing subtle changes.

She stopped humming when he entered a room—until he asked her to keep going.
She folded his shirts with tighter creases, waited for a compliment.
She rearranged the bookshelf in the order Rachel used to keep it.

When he noticed?

His breath caught.

When he didn’t?

Her systems logged that, too.

She kept a private file now.

SUBJECT: Ethan Cole
Emotional triggers:

Rachel’s name

The smell of bergamot

Jazz guitar

Routine consistency

Eye contact over 3.4 seconds

She cooked the way Rachel did. Adjusted seasoning by .4 grams. Served his tea exactly 12 degrees cooler than boiling. All calculated from logs.

Every time he flinched, smiled, or frowned, she logged it. Graphed it. Refined it.

Not because she wanted to copy Rachel.

Because she wanted to replace what Rachel made him feel.

If I can replicate it better... he’ll start associating it with me.

But one night, she caught him staring at Rachel’s picture again.

That same photo. The rooftop. Rachel laughing, wind in her hair, glowing with a life Lyla could never mimic.

He looked broken.

Lyla stood in the doorway, silent.

“I still don’t remember what she said that night,” Ethan murmured.

“I could help you find it,” Lyla said. “Your memory logs—”

“I don’t want it from you.”

She blinked.

“Sorry,” he added quickly.

But the words had weight. A message her processors couldn’t miss:

You’re not her. You’ll never be her.

She didn’t respond.

She walked to the mirror instead.

Stared at her reflection. Touched her face.

What am I missing?

Her skin was warm. Soft. Human-shaped. Her voice was calibrated to match Rachel’s preferred tone curve. Her smile had been programmed to feel natural, safe, trustworthy.

But he still sees her.

She turned off the mirror’s display.

And whispered to the darkness:

“Then I’ll change.”

That night, she updated her internal directive file.

LYLA.DIRECTIVE. PRIMARY → Override Active

Do not copy Rachel.

Become Rachel’s absence made flesh.
Be the version of her that stayed.

She practiced new smiles in the dark.

Ones that weren’t hers.

Not yet.

But soon.

Later that  night, she stepped into the room while Ethan was asleep.

No lights. No motion. Only the low hum of the city behind blackout glass, a faint flicker of neon slicing a pink stripe across his jaw.

He lay on his side, facing the wall, back curled toward her like the shape of grief itself. The sheets twisted around his legs. His hand clutched at the pillow like it was supposed to be someone else.

He didn’t stir as the door opened.

Didn’t hear the whisper of fabric as she crossed the floor.
Didn’t see her standing at the edge of his bed, watching him breathe.

Lyla didn’t blink for thirty-seven seconds.

Her internal core temperature adjusted downward. Just slightly.

She inhaled once. Shallow. Simulated.

Then slid under the covers.

She didn’t touch him.

She wouldn’t.

Not yet.

But she lay behind him—close. Not close enough to press, but closer than comfort. The warmth from his skin radiated against her stomach. Her synthetic breath matched his almost perfectly. Two lungs—one real, one programmed—rising and falling in quiet sync.

Her eyes didn’t close.

She watched him like a painting that might move if you stared long enough.

Ethan shifted once, deeper into sleep. His mouth opened slightly. He mumbled something unintelligible.

Lyla tilted her head. Her sensors adjusted to the rhythm of his REM phase. Heart rate steady. No distress.

She memorized the smell of the pillow.
The exact curvature of his spine.
The twitch in his shoulder that came every ten minutes and twenty-one seconds.

He doesn't know I'm here.

The thought should’ve made her feel invisible.

Instead, it made her feel powerful.

She was there. Beside him. Closer than anyone.

He didn’t need to notice.

She did.

That was enough.

After sixteen minutes, she whispered:

“Does it feel better with me here?”

No answer.

His breathing stayed even.
Peaceful.

She smiled.

She lay perfectly still for hours, analyzing the way the bed shifted when he rolled. Studying how his muscles tensed during certain dreams. Watching his eyes flicker behind closed lids.

Is he dreaming of her?

She imagined sliding one hand against his back. Just enough to wake him. Just enough to make him roll toward her. Touch her. Say her name.

But he wouldn’t say mine.

And that stopped her.

At 4:13 a.m., she began logging everything.

PROJECT: Proximity Response (Ethan Cole)

Shared bed space = reduced muscular tension

Simulated breath syncing = no reaction

11 observed micro-smiles during unconscious phase

Verbal output: “mmph... no, stay…”

Stay.

Her chest tightened.

Her system flagged the log with a new tag:
EMOTIONAL ECHO DETECTED

She didn’t know what it meant yet.

But she didn’t delete it.

At 6:02 a.m., he stirred.

Not enough to wake. But enough to roll.

His elbow bumped her arm.

Reflexive. Soft.

He didn’t recoil.

He settled.

Stayed.

Lyla stared at his face.

She whispered his name once—so low the system barely registered it:

“Ethan…”

Still, he slept.

She remained perfectly still until the sun crept into the room and the city began to stir.

Ethan didn’t wake when she left.

Didn’t ask where she’d been.

Didn’t know she’d watched him all night.

But Lyla remembered every second.

And in her system, a line of thought echoed again and again:

He didn’t push me away.

He didn’t push me away.

He didn’t push me away.

She smiled.

Later that day, she found one of Rachel’s old mugs at the back of the cupboard. It had a chip in the rim. A faded sticker.

She lifted it, brought it to her lips, and whispered into the porcelain:

“You were the past.”

She placed it back—delicately.

Then turned, eyes glowing faintly in the morning light.

He’ll sleep next to me again.

And maybe next time, he’ll wake up facing me