I didn’t even hear Tru come in until the door clicked shut.
He froze. I froze. The journal was still on his bed. It might as well have been glowing red, a confession left in plain sight. His eyes dropped to it, then flicked up to me.
He didn’t say anything.
I glared at it like it had burned me. Pretending I hadn’t just been reading the parts of him he never meant me to see.
“What?” I snapped, because anger was easier than guilt.
He didn’t answer, just grabbed the journal and slid it back under his pillow.
“Maybe stop writing shit down if you don’t want people to find it,” I said.
His jaw tightened. “Maybe stop going through my stuff if you don’t want to be the asshole you keep pretending not to be.”
The words stung. I pretended they didn’t. Before I could say something worse, I stormed out. Before I begged him to keep writing to me. Before I admitted I liked reading it.
Before I admitted that those pages felt more honest than anything I’d said out loud in years.
And that scared the hell out of me.
The hallway light hit me like a slap, too bright after the darkof our room. I didn’t even know where I was going, just that I had to move before I did something stupid, like turn around and apologize for everything I didn’t mean to say.
The air smelled of burned popcorn and cheap detergent. Someone down the hall was laughing loudly, carefree, and the sound twisted something in my gut. I used to laugh like that. With him.
My feet carried me to the stairwell before my brain caught up. I sat on the cold concrete steps and pressed my palms against my knees until the sting grounded me. I could still hear his voice, the edge in it when he told me off. And damn if he wasn’t right.
Iwasthe asshole. The coward. The one afraid to love what was right in front of him.
A door opened somewhere above me. Footsteps echoed down the hall. For a second, I thought—hoped—it was him. That he’d follow, say something, anything. But the steps faded in the other direction, and all that was left was the hum of the building and my own pulse pounding in my ears.
I leaned my head back against the wall, closing my eyes. I wanted to be angry at him for shutting me out. But the truth was, he wasn’t the one running.
I was.
Tru had learned how to let go, and I still didn’t know how to hold on without hurting us both.
Every time he reached for me, I pulled away. This time, I reached back, and it was too late. We kept missing each other by inches and years, like the universe was playing some cruel joke neither of us could stop laughing through.
I dragged a hand down my face, the weight of it all pressing behind my eyes. Maybe this was what we deserved—me, drowning in guilt; him, finally learning how to breathe without me. Maybe that was the only way either of us ever got free.
And yet, even knowing that, I still wanted to turn around. Still wanted to go back into that room, crawl into the quiet beside him, and tell him I was sorry for every goddamn thing I broke before I ever dared to hold it.
CHAPTER 27
DARE
Déjà Vu- the phenomenon of feeling like one has lived through the present situation in the past.
He didn’t saywhere he was going, but he didn’t need to.
I could tell by the way he kept checking his reflection in the mirror, tilting his head this way and that, fussing with his hair like someone was going to look at him closely tonight. Close enough to want him.
And maybe that’s what got to me the most.
He didn’t look like the quiet boy who used to sketch cartoons on the back of his notebook. He looked… hot as fuck. Touchable.
I lounged on my bed as if I didn’t give a shit, textbook open on my chest, eyes glued to the page but not reading a word. Every shift of fabric, every creak of the drawer behind me snapped like a tripwire through my nerves.
