“Wow.” His voice comes out flat. “You needed to do your skincare on time?”
I blink at him.
He frowns harder. “Really, Cece? I know you’re anal about this but… Hell, Uncle Gareth asked me to put a leash on you after you disappeared. In front ofbothour parents.”
I can’t process what he’s saying. Not yet.
His words are sharp now. Sharper with each syllable he emphasizes on.
He doesn’t know. And I can’t breathe. Not again. Not while he looks at me like I just humiliated him.
I gingerly get up. My knees are stiff from sitting too long and my body feels like it doesn’t quite belong to me. There’s a thick buzzing in my skull—like white noise pressing against the back of my eyes.
I hope my face shows it, what I’m feeling. But I know it doesn’t. It probably just looks blank. Tired. Maybe even irritated.
Levi steps further into the room. “Christ, Cece. Say something! What the fuck happened?”
I walk up to him, slowly. Trying to ground myself in every step. All I want—all Ineed—is a hug. Just warmth. Just stillness. Just silence wrapped in his arms. So I do the signal.
My fingers reach out and tug gently at the hem of his suit jacket. The same signal I’ve always used. The one he knows. A small tug. A small plea.
Just please hold me.
But… he steps back.
His arms don’t open. His chest doesn’t move forward. There’s no warmth. No quiet. Instead—“Did you have some kind of conversation with Gareth? I don’t think he’d bring you up like that so randomly.”
No. No, no, no.Fuck. That wasn’t what I asked for. That wasn’t what I needed.
He doesn’t know the signal. He doesn’t remember. Or maybe it was never the signal to him. Just a coincidence that made me think he had somehow learned that about me.
I was stupid. So fucking stupid.
He’s still talking. His mouth is moving. The room is moving. My heart is sprinting. And nothing—nothing—is slowing down. The words tangle into themselves.
I hear him, but I can’t hear him. I try to speak. But he is still speaking. And I want to stop the noise. “Stop,” I whisper.
He doesn’t.
“Leave,” I say a little louder.
But he doesn’t move. He’s pacing. Talking. Breathing too loudly. His shoes scrape the floor. The sound vibrates in my skull. The light overhead is buzzing. My phone lights up again—someone’s calling me.
He’s still talking.
So I yell. “Stop. Stop talking. Stop moving. Stop—” My throat clogs. “Stop breathing.”
He jolts like I hit him. “Stop breathing? What the fuck, Cece? Don’t you see—”
Please. No dammit,no.
I can’t take it. The floor feels like it’s spinning. And I can’t seem to find enough air to clear the blackness at the edges of my vision.
His voice—his voice—won’t stop.
I clutch my ears tightly. My fingers press into the side of my head, and I try to curl in on myself on the floor. My body starts to shake, and I know it’s only because the floor is trembling beneath my bare feet.
His voice. The buzz. The light. The call. The sound of my own damn heartbeat.
