Page 49

The lock yields with a quiet click, and the door creaks open slow, hesitant, almost like itknowsit’s betraying her.
Inside, the air smells like her. Soft. Sweet. Jasmine and darkness. A feeling that clings to the back of my throat and makes my hands shake. I close the door behind me, slide the chain back into place.
She’s asleep on the couch. Curled on her side, blanket half slipped off, mouth slightly open, hair a tangle of soft waves. One hand dangles off the cushion—begging me to touch it.
I move closer. Quiet. Controlled. But there’s nothing calm in me. My blood is wildfire. My head’s a fucking warzone.
I crouch beside the couch, close enough to see the mascara she didn’t wash off, the faint bruises under her eyes from too little sleep, the soft twitch in her fingers like she’s still fighting something in her dreams.
She’s so goddamn beautiful, it makes me sick. I reach out. My fingers hover over hers. I don’t touch her—can’t.If I do, Iwon’t stop. But I want to. I want to drag that hand to my mouth and kiss it like penance. Like punishment. I want to replace every ghost she’s let in since I left.
She stirs, breath catching, but she doesn’t wake.
I should go. I should. But instead, I lean down—voice barely a breath.
“You don’t get to forget me,” I whisper. “Not when I can’t even close my eyes without seeing you.”
I sit in the chair in the corner of the room, watching the rise and fall of her breath. Moonlight kisses the edge of her cheekbone, her collarbone, her bare shoulder where the strap of her tank top slipped down.
I know this is wrong. But wrong is the only language I speak when it comes to her.
She whimpers in her sleep. Twitches. I know the signs. I’ve had enough nightmares of my own to recognize when someone’s stuck in the pit. She thrashes suddenly—gasps, sits upright, chest heaving, eyes wide and wild and wet.
And then she sees me. She goes still. So do I. Her breath catches. Her mouth parts. But she doesn’t scream. Because she knows it’s me.
The silence between us is thunderous. The weight of it presses on my ribs like a loaded gun. I sit forward slowly, elbows on my knees, hand resting on my jaw. I don’t speak. I want her to feel it first. The weight of me. The inevitability of me.
She stares at me like I’m something she summoned by mistake. Some grief-bound demon that crawled out of the hole she buried me in.
Let her be angry. Let her hate me. I’d rather be her rage than her silence.
Then I say it—low, steady, and so damn honest it cuts my throat on the way out:
“You can try to forget me, Maxine. You can even try toreplace me. You can kiss little boys in button-downs. Let them buy you dinner and tell you how pretty you look with your hair up.” I pause. Let the truth sink its claws in. “But it won’t work, Maxine. Because I’ll always be here. I’m the shadow you sleep with. The ache you can’t cure. You can cover it in normal, but it’ll never fit. Not for a girl like you.”
She doesn’t blink. She’s trembling, but it’s not fear that rattles her bones. It’s recognition. Because I’m not wrong, and we both fucking know it. Her lips part—maybe to argue or scream, maybe to beg me to leave before she begs me to stay. But I beat her to it.
“You want to hate me?” I ask, voice low. “Do it. You want to scream? I deserve it. You want me gone?” I lean forward, eyes locked on hers. “Then stop dreaming about me.”
She throws the blanket off like it’s made of poison.
“You arrogant, obsessive son of a bitch!”
There it is. She’s on her feet in a second, ferocious anger radiating off her like heat. She’s barefoot, hair wild, tank clinging to her damp skin from the nightmare I know just dragged her out of sleep.
And I can’t take my eyes off her.
“You don’t get to talk about what I can and can’t do!” she shouts. “You don’t get to break into my fucking apartment and act like you’re some poetic punishment I’ve been begging for!”
She’s pacing, and I let her, tracking her like prey. My heart’s pounding, jaw clenched so hard it aches. “You left me, Saxon! You used me! You disappeared! And now you think you can just—what? Sulk in corners and whisper pretty words like that makes up for it? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Her laugh cuts through me like a razor. God, I’ve missed that venom in her voice.
“You say you’ll always be here? Like that’s supposed to makeme feel safe? You’re the nightmare I wake up from, Saxon. You’re the shadow I lock my doors against!”
I shoot to my feet, and I stalk towards her. I don’t even think—I just feel.My body acts on instinct, fury and longing bleeding together until I can’t tell where one ends and the other starts.
She backs up. Her eyes flash.