Page 62 of His To Erase

He closes the space between us in two steps—towering over me, still shirtless and completely unreadable.

His eyes are locked onto mine like they’re trying to bore straight through.

But this time, when he touches me, it’s different.

He puts a hand on my jaw, fingers curled beneath my chin as he tilts my head up.

“You remember more than you think,” he says in a whisper. “And someone out there is counting on that.”

My stomach drops. A chill ghosts across my skin. “Steven—”

“Go to bed,” he murmurs.

That’s it. He turns, disappearing down the hall, leaving me standing there, heat still trapped in my chest and silence thick around me. A sound makes me jump—a single ping from my phone, that’s in the other room.

I almost don’t move, deciding to let it rot there. Whatever it is, whoever it is, I don’t need it.

But my feet move anyway.

UNKNOWN: Funny thing about ghosts. You can run from them, bury them, burn the evidence... But they always crawl back up when it’s quiet. You know who you really belong to.

I stare at it. My blood is pounding, and my fingers refuse to move. It’s vague, but not vague enough.

Are they at my apartment? Are they outside in the trees right now—watching?

My skin prickles as every instinct screams to move, to run and hide. I refuse to give them that.

I type a reply with fingers that feel like stone.

ME: You don’t scare me.

I move toward the hallway with my jaw locked and rage simmering beneath my ribs like a fuse.

If Steven wants to play cryptic, fine. But he doesn’t get to shut down and leave me dangling.

Not after everything.

The door to his office is half-closed, but I push it open without knocking. He’s sitting at his desk like he never left with that same controlled fury carved into the set of his shoulders, his fingers beneath his chin. His eyes look up the second I step inside and narrow.

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

“And yet,” I mutter, crossing the threshold, “here I am.”

The door shuts behind me with a soft click.

“You said something out there.” I fold my arms, tightly across my chest. “About remembering more than I think. What did you mean?”

He just watches me like he’s already calculated every possible way this conversation could go, and he’s still three steps ahead. But I’m not leaving until I get something. Even if I have to burn the whole room down to get it.

He just shifts in his chair slightly—like he’s not surprised I came in, only deciding how much rope to give me before I hang myself.

I step farther into the room. “You said I remember more than I think,” I say again, slower this time. “So tell me what you think I’m forgetting.”

Still nothing.

“You’re really gonna sit there and act like you haven’t been watching me unravel?” My voice cracks. “That I’m not walking around with fucking holes in my memory and nightmares that don’t belong to me?”

His jaw ticks, and that’s it. I snap.

“I’m obviously not the only one hiding shit,” I step closer before I can talk myself out of it. “So unless you plan on staying cryptic forever, maybe it’s your turn to spill something real.”

My eyes flick to the desk—papers, a pen, and one manila folder. “Starting with that,” I add, already moving toward it.

“Don’t,” he warns.

I stop mid-step, heart pounding in my ears. “Why? What is it?” My voice drops. “Is it about me?”

He doesn’t answer.

“You’ve been digging,” I whisper.

He stands slowly, rising to his full height, and towers over me. Everything about him screams don’t push, which only makes me want to push harder.

“Of course I have,” he says coldly. “You think I let someone into my house without knowing who the fuck they are?”

I flinch before I can stop it. “I didn’t ask to come here.”

“No,” he says, voice tightening. “But you didn’t leave either.”

“I tried—”

“Did you?”

His voice cuts like a blade. “Or did you crawl back because you wanted to?”

My throat clamps shut and I hate how fast he switches gears. I hate that I don’t know how to answer.

“I don’t know what I want,” I say finally, feeling raw and wrecked. “But I’m done being the only one trying to figure out what the fuck is real.”

His jaw ticks, as he tracks me like prey. But he doesn’t move. So I close the distance, reaching for the edge of the folder waiting for him to stop me.

“Don’t,” he growls again.

I ignore him, running my fingers under the edge—

“Come here,” he snaps.

I freeze.

Slowly lifting my gaze to his. His expression is unreadable, but there’s heat there. Something darker sitting just beneath the surface.

“I’m not done asking questions,” I say.

“I’m done reminding you who you’re asking them to.”

My hand hovers over the folder, fingers curled at the edge like peeling back one more inch might change everything.

“I said come here, Ani.”

Somehow, the way he says it is worse than if he shouted it. There’s something in his voice that slides straight under my skin and coils around every nerve. I step around the desk, heart hammering now, standing inches from him.

“Why am I here?” I whisper.

He doesn’t answer, instead, his hand comes up and slides behind my neck, pulling me in until my breath catches.

“You’re asking questions,” he murmurs, “you already know the answers to.”

“I don’t,” I whisper. “And that’s what makes this worse.”

He studies me while I stare up at him, his thumb stroking once at the nape of my neck. His expression doesn’t change, but something in his body shifts. I can tell he’s trying to rein something in—and he’s not doing a great job of it.

“You know more than you think,” he murmurs. “You just don’t trust it yet.”

A flicker of heat crawls up the back of my neck, slow and invasive, like the words know where to go before I do.

“And you do?” I ask, quieter than I mean to.

“I trust patterns,” he says. “I trust instincts. And mine are rarely wrong.”

My ribs lock around a breath I don’t fully take. “So what are your instincts telling you about me?”

His eyes stay locked on mine. “That you’re terrified of something,” he says finally. “Something you haven’t put words to yet. And that if I push too hard, you’ll run—but if I don’t push at all, you’ll drown.”

My throat goes tight. This cannot be happening right now.

“But that’s the problem with you,” he continues. His voice dips low enough to settle under my skin. “You never learned how to call for help. You just sink quieter.”

And fuck him, because it hits too close, he didn’t just pull a thread—he found the one holding me together and yanked, hard.

I want to laugh and tell him to go to hell, or throw up a wall and call it sass—but all I can do is stare. I’ve been carrying this sinking weight for so long, I stopped realizing it was heavy. Part of me still believes drowning quietly is safer than surfacing.

“And what does that make you?” I rasp. “The lifeguard?”

His mouth twitches with something meaner, and something sad. “No. Just the bastard watching from shore who got tired of waiting.”

The silence stretches again, and my hand curls slightly against the desk behind me.

“You don’t even know me,” I whisper, voice cracking.

“I know how your whole body tenses when a floorboard creaks behind you. Like you’re waiting to be dragged back somewhere you’ve already fought your way out of.”

He moves closer, and his voice drops lower.

“I know you check your reflection twice—not to fix it, but to make sure no one’s behind you. I know you sleep with your phone in your hand like it’s a weapon. And I know the silence isn’t peaceful for you. It’s fucking loud.”

My breath snags, and my chest tightens as he keeps going, like he’s unraveling me stitch by fucking stitch. And I can’t breathe.

Not because I’m scared—God, I wish that were it—but because he’s cutting too close. Closer than anyone ever has. Closer than I want him to. He doesn’t just ask, he knows. He’s somehow already slipped past every defense I’ve got, and now he’s just… taking inventory.

He’s right though. I don’t ask for help. I never have. I learned a long time ago that silence was safer than trust, that shrinking in on myself hurt less than being left bleeding with my heart hanging out. That if I kept my wounds quiet, maybe nobody would notice how deep they went.

But somehow, he noticed. And now I’m fucking suffocating under the weight of it. I’m not afraid of him, I’m afraid of how badly I want him to keep going. To see the whole bloody mess and not flinch. To look at me like I’m still worth claiming.

“I know you pretend not to care. That the sarcasm is armor, and the flirting’s a distraction. But underneath it, you’re just trying to figure out who the hell you were before someone turned you into a ghost with a fake name and a past you can’t look at straight.”

His hand grazes mine on the desk, barely touching me but it might as well be a spark to a fuse.

“And I know,” he murmurs, “you’d rather bite your own tongue than admit you’re scared. Because you think if you say it out loud… it makes it real.”

I scoff, clenching my jaw. “Wow. You want a medal or something? Or just a participation trophy for psychoanalyzing the fucked-up girl you keep dragging back into your bed?”

His jaw ticks. That muscle in his cheek flexes like it’s holding back something feral.

“Careful,” he warns, with a razor-edge to his voice. “You’re pushing.”

“Good,” I snap. “Because you’re not some savior, Steven. You don’t get to play protector just because you finally noticed I flinch. You don’t get to look at me like I’m broken glass you’re trying not to step on—when you’re the one leaving fucking footprints.”

The silence is charged. I know I shouldn't be pushing him, but I can’t help it.

“What the fuck do you want, Ani?” he growls. “For me to lie? Pretend I don’t see it? You want someone who’ll keep their distance and let you spiral in peace?”

I open my mouth—then shut it again, keeping my jaw locked tight. Because fuck him for being right. And fuck me for not knowing the answer.