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.