He rises, wraps a blanket around his naked body. “I don’t plan on leaving.”
“No one ever does.”
He’s silent for a beat. I feel him behind me, close enough to warm my skin. “Tabitha.”
I look back. His expression is all edges and ache.
“When Ralph pulled that gun,” he says, voice shaking slightly, “I thought that was it. I thought I’d die with every wrong thing I ever did on a loop. I did what I had to do, and I have no regrets, but every day I wonder what if I had been only a second later with the gun? If?—”
“But you weren’t,” I say. “You didn’t hesitate, and you saved Angie. Jason. Me. Now let me save you.”
“I’m not asking you to save me.” He steps closer. “I’m asking you to believe I’ll fight for myself. For you. For this.”
The word fight hits something deep in me. Some nerve I’ve been pretending didn’t exist. Because I’ve been fighting, too. Against fear. Against wanting too much. Against the voice that says I don’t get to have this and everything else.
He reaches for my hand. I let him take it.
For a moment, I let myself believe him.
The thunder rolls closer. The sound vibrates through the walls, low and hungry.
Henry glances at the window. “Storm’s coming back.”
“Yeah,” I say softly, knowing he’s not talking about the weather. “Feels like it.”
And for a heartbeat, we just stand there. We’re two people who’ve burned through every excuse and are holding on anyway.
He doesn’t let go of my hand. If anything, he tightens his grip.
“Tell me,” he says. “Not the polished version. Tell me about that night. What it did to you.”
“I told you.”
“No. Tell me how you felt. How you feel now.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Are you willing to do the same for me?”
“If that’s what you want.”
I sigh. I don’t like to revisit that memory. Remembering that night takes me to the darkest place. There’s a reason I’ve been so focused on the seminar beyond my career. Beyond my feelings for Henry.
It’s an escape from the dark place.
“I don’t want you to relive anything you don’t want to relive,” I tell him. “You shouldn’t ask that of me, either.”
“I’m only giving you the chance to talk about it if you want to. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”
“Good.”
But the thoughts spear through my head, swirling and whirling like tornadoes. Everything I’ve done since that night.
How in the shower, I scrub until my skin burns, until the water runs cold and my fingers ache. It’s not about getting clean. It’s about trying to wash out the memory of his breath near my ear, the smell of sweat and fear. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror afterward, and I don’t recognize the woman looking back. She’s smaller somehow. With less light.
Sleep is worse. My body remembers before my mind does, and my heart pounds, my chest locks, and I kick against something invisible. I wake up gasping, clawing at sheets that have never hurt me. The room is safe. The lock is on. But I can still feel him invading my space.
And when the world goes quiet, when everyone else moves on, I’m still here. I’m alive. Alive but cracked open.
I tell myself that surviving is enough. That someday, it will feel like victory. But right now, it just feels like standing on the edge of a scream I can’t quite let out.
