Page 22 of Hidden

She was scaredforme.

She knew exactly what I was risking by being here. She remembered what this was—what we had been.

But I wasn’t going anywhere.

The memories came without warning, crashing over me as I stood there staring at her. Sneaking off on the back of my bike. Sitting in open fields while she braided her hair. Linking our fingers together, comparing the size of our hands like it meant a difference. Like it meant something.

It had meanteverything.

We had built a lifetime out of stolen moments. And this? This was just the latest one.

A new chapter for us.

And standing there, separated by nothing but glass and everything we had become, I knew she felt it too.

So I didn’t move.

Not when her breathing steadied just enough to stop her chest from heaving so violently. Not when the minutes stretched into hours, time passing heavily and suspended, as though the world had narrowed to nothing but the space between us. Not even when the first faint hint of grey began to bleed into the sky behind me.

I stayed exactly where I was, watching her.

Committing every detail to memory.

The way her fingers curled slightly at her sides, like she didn’t know what to do with them. The way her gaze kept flicking to the door before returning to me, torn between instinct and something else she didn’t want to name. The way she didn’t run.

And that was the part that mattered to me the most. Because she could have screamed. She could have woken the entire house up and ended this the second it began. She knew what the consequence would be if I was caught here by my rivals.

And yet she didn’t.

A slow, knowing satisfaction settled within me.

Hours seemed to pass like that, neither of us breaking the moment, neither of us willing to be the first to look away.The tension didn’t ease, didn’t soften—it only shifted, changing shape as the night wore on, settling into something quieter and heavier. Something inevitable.

Because we were inevitable. We always had been. No matter what form our relationship looked like. And so I didn’t leave. I wasn’t capable of leaving.

Because I knew, deep down, that the second I walked away, something would change again. The distance would return. The silence. The illusion that this—whatever this was—could be ignored.

I wasn’t ready for that. Not anymore.

The sky lightened further, the darkness beginning to retreat, and with it came reality creeping back in. The world waking up. The risk increasing. The line I had already crossed becoming more dangerous with every passing second.

I saw it in her, too.

The shift. The awareness. The break in the illusion.

Her shoulders tensed slightly, her eyes flicking again towards the door, then back to me, more urgent this time.

Go.

She didn’t say it. She didn’t need to. It was written clearly on her face.

My jaw tightened, something in me resisting the idea of leaving, of stepping back into the shadows after finally standing in front of her like this. But I wasn’t stupid. Reckless, maybe. Unhinged, definitely.

But not stupid.

Not yet.

Although she was coming close to breaking me. To pushing me past the point of no return.