It felt like Dean was standing here and a thin door was separating us. It felt like his fist was banging on it. It felt like I was pressing my weight against the thin wood, fearing that the lock was going to give out and he was going to get into my room.
“Alivia!”
Why did he have to scream?
“Baby, are you okay?”
Why did he have to talk to people that way?
“Look at me, Alivia.”
Why did it feel like someone was shaking my arm?
“Alivia, open your eyes. Please.”
That same voice.
But now it was quiet.
Just a little above a whisper, something I could barely hear since my ears were blocked with my palms.
“Alivia …”
There it was again.
My eyes opened to Walker’s face.
Walker was here? In front of me?
I blinked a few times. Once the darkness left, he was still there. There was concern in his expression, and I watched him sigh in relief.
But then his face was gone, and I was suddenly lifted off the ground and in the air.
I felt movement.
Wind across my cheeks.
Something hard beneath me.
“What just happened?”
His question registered. I heard the words, I understood what they meant, but instead of answering, I glanced around.
There was an empty chair next to me, a desk in front of me, pictures and framed things on the walls.
Had he carried me into his office?
Walker was kneeling between the desk and me, his hands on the armrests of the chair I was in, a splattering of red sauce on the top right corner of his chef’s whites—whites so bright that I had to squint.
“Alivia?”
“I … don’t know.” My head shook.
I felt his warmth on my thighs. He was rubbing them.
“I left the kitchen to come in here, and I found you huddled on the floor by your locker with your hands over your ears. When I said your name, you wouldn’t respond. Did you not hear me, or … were you feeling sick?”
I put my hands over my face and leaned forward. “Walker …”
