Page 209 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

“Past tense,” Wayne reminds me.

I nod, but it takes me a second to find the movement.

“Past tense,” I repeat as if trying to convince my own body.

Because part of me doesn’t quite believe it yet.

My eyes stay fixed on the building, on the third-floor window that used to be mine. I can see it clearly, the way the light hit the wall in the afternoon, the spot on the couch where I used to sit and carve, trying to make something beautiful out of scraps while everything else felt off.

I remember the bedroom door being slightly open, the tiny yet so wrong detail that made my skin prickle before I even knew why.

I remember the sound of my box hitting the floor.

The way everything I was, teacher, safe place, Miss Hartley, spilled out in front of Max and that woman, and he had the gall to be annoyed with me for interrupting his day.

My chest tightens at the memory.

I drag in a breath, but it doesn’t go all the way in.

“I can still see it,” I admit quietly. “That day. Walking in. The smell. The way the bedroom door was open just a little. I knew something was wrong before I even⁠—”

My voice catches.

I stop, pressing my lips together, but it’s already there now, sitting between us.

Rex shifts closer on my other side, not touching, but near enough that I can feel the heat of him.

“You don’t have to go back in there,” he says. “Not for anything.”

“I’m not going back in,” I say a little too quickly.

The thought alone makes ice cold slide down my spine.

I shake my head, forcing my focus back to the building, like I can anchor myself through it instead of letting it pull me under.

“I just… I needed to see it,” I say. “In real life. Not in my head. Not in that version where everything still feels… unfinished.”

Fletcher’s voice is low behind me. “And now?”

I swallow.

“I thought I’d feel smaller,” I admit. “Like I used to when I was here. Like I’d look at it and remember all the ways I wasn’t good enough to make it work.” I let out a slow breath. “But I don’t feel that way now.”

Wayne shifts closer, his shoulder almost brushing mine now. “What do you feel?”

I think about it.

About the girl who stood in that apartment trying to make herself easier, quieter, less inconvenient. The girl who thought that if she just tried harder, loved better, bent a little more, things would finally settle into something safe.

And I realize…

“I feel like I don’t belong to that version of my life anymore,” I say slowly.

Rex lets out a quiet breath. Fletcher doesn’t move, but I can feel his attention sharpen.

Wayne nods once. “Because you don’t.”

I glance up at the window one last time.