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“I did once.”
“Not by choice.” Her chin quivers. “And then youleft.”
“I had to.”
“Youchoseto.”
I move slowly, deliberately, and brush my fingers along her jaw — feather-light, reverent, like I’m touching something sacred. She doesn’t stop me. Her breath shivers, but she doesn’t pull away.
“I’m the man who still wakes up choking on the memory of you,” I murmur. “I’m the man who hears your scream in his chest every day. I’m the man who wants to spend whatever’s leftof his life proving to you that walking away wasn’t the end of our story.”
Silence falls. Crackling. Splitting. Alive.
“You can’t fix it,” she whispers, eyes shimmering.
“I don’t want to fix it.”
She blinks, confused.
“I just wantyou.”
She flinches like the words hit her too hard. And for one flickering second — just one — I see something shift in her eyes. Not forgiveness. But memory. The memory of what wecouldhave been, if the world had been kinder. I force myself to pull back, even when every muscle in my body wants to stay, wants to fall to my knees and beg.
“I’ll leave,” I whisper.
She stares, trembling.
“But you should know something, Maxine.”
I step toward the window, sliding it open with a soft scrape.
The moonlight paints her skin silver, makes her look like a goddess and a ghost all at once.
“You still breathe my name in your sleep,” I murmur. “And baby… I’m listening.”
And then I disappear into the night.
15
MAXINE
Idon’t move for a long, long time. I just lie there—staring at the window, watching the curtains flutter in the soft night air, trying to convince myself that what just happened was some fever dream stitched together from trauma and sleep deprivation.
But my chest still aches where his voice hit me. My jaw still buzzes where his fingers brushed it. And my sheets still smell like him.
I launch myself out of bed so fast I nearly trip. My heart’s in my throat, in my ears, pounding like a war drum as I tear through the room and slam the window shut, lock it, bolt it, barricade it. It’s not enough. Nothing feels like it’s enough.
My knees hit the floor of the bathroom. I reach blindly for the tap. Twist it until scalding water explodes from the showerhead, steam flooding the glass.
I strip fast. Frantic. Like I can peel him off me. I step under the water and scrub. My skin is raw within seconds—nails digging, soap stinging, fury radiating off me in waves.
“You son of abitch,” I hiss.
But the water doesn’t drown the memory. It doesn’t burnaway the heat of his breath on my cheek. Nor does it erase the way he said my name like he owned it. And the worst part is the sick part of me that liked it.
God, I’m disgusting.
How long has he been watching me? How long has he been inside this apartment?