“Why can’t you look at me?” My voice cracks on the last word, and I hate it. I hate the sound of it, because I know that sound. I’ve heard that sound from myself before, and I know what follows it—the shrinking, the making myself smaller.
He looks at me, but not the way he's been all week. Not the way I’ve been cataloguing—the warm, steady look I’ve been filing under things I don’t examine. This is something else. Something controlled and behind glass.
I did it again.
The thought arrives before I can stop it.
I did something wrong. I ruined it. I always ruin it.
“Can we talk about last—”
“It was a mistake, Piper.”
The sentence strips the air out of the room.
Mistake.
You ruined it.
I hear Ezra’s voice so clearly it’s almost physical.
This is why we can’t have things, Piper.
A mistake.
Silly girl.
He only did it because you were there. Because you were the closest available option, and it was late, and you were convenient, and you have done this, you have done this again, haven’t you?
“Right.” I hear myself say it from somewhere above my body. I nod and move toward the table before I pick up the coffee just to do something with my hands. “I—yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should have had more control. Last night wasn’t—I shouldn’t have let it—”
“Right,” I say again.
I hear myself perfectly. How light it feels. How easy everything is. There she is, that girl, the one who’s been living inside my body for the past few years without my permission. The one who says "right" and "no, I’m fine," and "don’t worry about it."
I reach for my sunglasses. When I put them on, the room goes slightly darker. Better.
“I’m feeling like a walk. It’s a beautiful morning. I’ll be back soon.”
I turn and open the door.
I get one step before the door slams with the thud of a hand pressed against it.
“Jesus Christ, baby. Stop.” Griffin is behind me, close enough that I can feel the proximity, close enough that I could lean back and reach him.
I keep looking at the door.
“Please let me go for a walk,” I say.
Very reasonable. Very calm. Very much not falling apart.
He doesn’t move.
Then his hand comes around me and takes the coffee cup out of my grip. I let him have it because the alternative is holding on, and I can’t hold on right now.
I hear him exhale and feel my sunglasses come off next.
