Page 75 of Chasing After You

I wasn’t as mad as I should’ve been. I was more confused. I couldn’t wrap my head around what he’d done. It didn’t make any sense.

The distance I was keeping now served both as a way for me to think through things without his influence and to punish him for doing something really morally fucked up.

Surprisingly, he hadn’t thrown a tantrum yet, which was great. Taking the spoiled kid’s favorite toy away typically didn’tgo over well, so I was secretly a little proud of him for how he was handling it. He was giving me space, just as I’d wanted.

I tried to keep my attention on the screen, but the show felt too loud and too fake. People were shouting answers and laughing like everything made sense. It didn’t.

I turned the volume down until their voices were barely a murmur.

The quiet that followed wasn’t peaceful. It was heavy, making it hard to breathe.

I continued to stare at the TV anyway, arms crossed over my chest, legs drawn up beneath the blanket like I could protect my core from the cold creeping in. Not the literal cold. The other kind—the kind that seeps in when someone close to you betrays your trust in a way you didn’t see coming.

I didn’t want to think about how good it had felt.

That was the problem, wasn’t it?

It hadn’t felt bad. I kind of wish it had, that way I wouldn’t have been so confused.

The logical part of my brain screamed that it should have been horrible and traumatizing andwrong, wrong, wrong. That I should have been furious, panicked, scared out of my mind. And I had been, for maybe a minute. But then I’d just… folded.

Like always.

Maybe I was more fucked up than I thought.

I rubbed my hands over my face, trying to ground myself. The guilt was gnawing at me from every angle. For feeling betrayed. For not feelingbetrayed enough. For letting him get close to me again. For missing the sound of his voice, even now. For wanting to get out of this bed and crawl into his.

I glanced at the door, half expecting to see his shadow underneath it, waiting for a signal that it was okay to come back in.

He wasn’t there.

Good. That meant he was taking this seriously.

I’d asked for space, and he was giving it to me.

So why did it feel like the distance was ripping me in half?

I didn’t want to forgive him. Not yet. Not when I still couldn’t wrap my head around how easily he’d slipped something into my drink. How casual he’d made it all seem. Like it wasn’t a big deal. Likeheknew what I needed more than I did.

And maybe that was the worst part.

Because when I thought about it honestly, painfully, I couldn’t help but wonder… what if hewasright?

What if the part of me that was still mad was the same part that didn’t know how to accept being loved in the first place?

I shoved the covers down and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, feeling restless and hot. The air in the room felt too thick, as if it were pressing against my skin.

I needed water.

Or a distraction.

Or Dorian.

No.No,notDorian. Not… not yet.

He’d drugged me. That wasn’t a misunderstanding. That wasn’t a gray area. He’d done something without my consent right after giving me a damn safe word.

I hated how much I wanted to open the door.