Page 153 of Power Play

The words left me rougher than I intended because I could already picture it.

Lance entering a room. Charm’s hand slipping from mine. Her posture changing while she found the version of herself he approved of. Me standing there like a mistake she hoped nobody would notice long enough for her to explain it away.

The image reached every place I spent years teaching myself nobody could touch.

Charm spun around. “I have never acted like you’re nothing.”

“At the fair last night, Evan asked if we were together, and you said we were hanging out.”

“We are!”

“Then why did you say it like you needed him to know it wasn’t serious?”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“I got nervous.”

“I know.”

Her eyes filled.

That should’ve shut me up. It didn’t because this mattered too much, and I was already too deep to pretend her fear only belonged to her.

“I know you get nervous,” I said, lowering my voice. “I know people looking at you fucks with your head. I felt you pull your hand away when those girls looked at us yesterday.”

Her face changed again. “You noticed that?”

“I notice everything you do.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“I’m not punishing you for having anxiety, Charm.”

“It sounds like it.”

“Don’t do that.”

She flinched at my tone.

I closed the distance but stopped before touching her. “Don’t turn what I’m saying into something uglier because that version is easier to fight. I don’t care that you get scared. I care that fear still gets a vote in every fucking decision you make.”

Her breathing became faster. “You don’t understand.”

“Then help me.”

“You think I like being like this?”

“I never said that.”

“You think I don’t know I care too much what people think?”

“I think you know it and keep giving them the power anyway.”

The tears gathering in her eyes made my chest hurt, but the frustration had been building for weeks. I watched Charm begin to step outside herself with me, then disappear back inside the second somebody else entered the equation.

“You went shopping with your mother and came home unable to tell me whether you liked your own dress.”