He turns and everything sharpens, comes into focus, and every fucking time he looks at me it's like this—the rest of the world goes fuzzy at the edges, my lungs forget their job, the temperature spikes even though nothing's different except his attention on me.
"How was it?"
That's all he gives me. But it's so loaded I could unpack it for hours.
"It was fine."
His jaw tightens and I watch it happen, watch the muscle jump. "Just fine?"
"Yeah." I cross my arms, uncross them, shove my hands in my pockets because I don't know what to do with them, don't know what to do with any of this. "Just fine."
The silence stretches and he's studying my face, like if he looks hard enough he'll decode what I'm not saying, what I can't say, what I don't even understand myself.
"You going to see him again?"
My chest hurts, physically hurts. "I don't know. Maybe not."
Something flickers across his face—there and gone before I can name it, before I can grab onto it and demand he explain what it means—but he doesn't say anything.
Just nods once.
Goes back to the wrench in his hand like this conversation's over, like my answer doesn't matter, like he didn't just ask me something that feels like it should matter.
"I'm going upstairs."
I turn.
"Scout."
I stop. Don't turn around because I can't, because if I look at him right now I'll—I don't know what I'll do. My ribs feel too tight around my lungs and every nerve ending goes still, waiting.
Please. Please say something.
Tell me you want me to stay.
Tell me you noticed I was gone.
Tell me you spent today thinking about me the way I spent the entire date thinking about you.
Tell me this matters.
Tell me I'm not making this up in my head. Please just say something.
The silence stretches and I'm counting heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Counting how long it takes for him to figure out what he wants to say, to be brave enough to say it, to just—seven, eight, nine, ten. My lungs are burning and when did I stop breathing? Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Please.
"I’m glad you had a good time."
The break is clean. Precise. Like a bone snapping. I feel it happen, feel the exact moment hope turns to something sharp and jagged that catches in my throat.
I keep walking. Don't look back, don't let him see. Climb the stairs, close the door, lean against it and press my palms flat because my hands are shaking and I can't make them stop.
I sit on the edge of my bed and this weight settles in my chest, terrifying and certain: I want the hard thing, the complicated thing, the thing that makes sense of nothing except how alive it makes me feel.
But wanting it doesn't mean I get it. Doesn't mean he'll ever be brave enough to reach for me. And waiting—waiting while he's ten feet away saying nothing—this is torture, this is its own special hell, this is me sitting here alone knowing exactly what I want and having absolutely no idea how to get it because it requires him to want it too. And how am I supposed to know if he does when he won't say anything, when he just looks at me like that and then turns away, when he calls my name and then says nothing like—like what? Like he's scared? Like he wants to but can't? Like I'm making this entire thing up in my head and he actually feels nothing?
I don't know. I don't know anything except that Grant was nice and easy and I pulled away, and Holt is difficult and silent and I'd crawl across broken glass just to hear him finish one goddamn sentence. So yeah. I'm completely fucked.
Chapter 16
