A soft footstep behind me.
My entire body locked rigid. Every muscle tensed like I'd taken a hit I hadn't seen coming.
I turned.
Olivia stood at the corridor's edge, backlit by the emergency exit glow. Her bag hung loose from one shoulder. Eyes wide, lips parted on an inhale she forgot to release. Staring directly at me. At her sweater clutched in my fist.
The silence stretched thin enough to snap. I watched her expression shift—confusion bleeding into hurt, then something fragile and desperate that looked dangerously like hope. Her throat worked on a swallow. Waiting for me to explain why I held her clothing like it mattered. Like I hadn't spent an entire week pretending she didn't exist.
Every carefully constructed wall I'd built crumbled to dust.
I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't do anything except stand there exposed—the mask I wore for everyone else shattered completely under her gaze.
She took one hesitant step forward. She moved closer. Each footstep deliberate, careful—like approaching something wounded and dangerous.
"Why won't you look at me anymore?"
Her voice cracked on the question. Broke around the edges. But she held steady anyway, chin lifted despite the tremor running through her.
Panic slammed through my chest. White-hot. Suffocating.
The sweater dropped from my fingers. Hit the concrete with barely a whisper of sound. I turned away fast, putting my back to her, shoulders rigid enough to ache.
Don't do this. Don't make me explain.
"You shouldn't be here." The words came out harsher than I meant. Cold. Dismissive. Exactly what I needed them to be. "You need to go home."
"Rhys—"
"It was a mistake."
Silence crashed down between us. Heavy. Devastating.
I didn't turn around. Couldn't watch her face crumple under the weight of what I'd just said. Couldn't see the moment she understood I meant every word—that I'd categorized everything we'd done, everything we'd shared, as something I needed to erase.
Behind me, her breath hitched. Sharp. Pained.
I forced myself to stay frozen. Kept my expression locked down even though she couldn't see it. Every instinct screamed to turn back, to take the words back, to pull her close and apologize until she forgave me for being exactly what I'd always been—too damaged to deserve her.
"A mistake," she repeated.
The hurt in those two words nearly broke me.
I gripped the back of my neck, fingers digging too hard into muscle already tense enough to snap. "Yeah."
"So that's it? You just... what? Pretend it never happened?"
Yes. That's exactly what I do.
"Go home, Olivia."
"Stop telling me what to do."
Fire crept into her voice now. Anger chasing the hurt. Good. She should be angry. Should hate me for this. Would make walking away easier for both of us.
I still didn't turn around. "I'm trying to protect you."
"From what?" Her voice rose, cracking again. "From you? Because that's what it feels like—like you can't stand to be near me. Like touching me disgusted you so much you had to disappear before I woke up."
