Enough that the heat between us broke. Enough that the circle of his arms fell away. Enough that whatever had been holding us together gave way.
It felt like falling out of a moving car. Like one second I was inside something warm and human, and the next I was standing on the side of the road watching it disappear.
Fear was what lived in his eyes—not disgust. Fear of what my wanting might do to him. Fear of what he might become if he didn’t stop it. Fear that he couldn’t hold me without being broken. And in that instant, I realized he might love me, but he was too terrified to prove it.
It happened automatically, folding in on myself. My shoulders caved. My spine curved. Anything to make myself smaller than the need that had slipped through my mouth.
He didn’t reach for me again. He didn’t say it was okay. He didn’t tell me I hadn’t crossed a line. He just… stayed still.
And somehow that hurt more than if he’d pushed me away. The space between us thickened. Heavy. Loud.
I stared down at the sand, at the dark wet patches where my tears had fallen, at my hands shaking uselessly in my lap. “I’m sorry,” I whispered again, but quieter now. Flatter. Like an apology to the universe instead of to him.
He didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t care. But because he didn’t know how. And the silence filled with everything we couldn’t say.
Everything I was.
Everything he was afraid of.
“Right,” I said finally, my voice too steady for how bad I was breaking inside. “Okay.”
I pushed up onto my feet and he let me without uttering a word. That was the part that stayed with me. Not the flinch. Not the pause. Not even the word.
The fact that he didn’t stop me from leaving.
My feet moved silently as I took a step back, then another, the cold air rushing in where his warmth had been, where I had been held just seconds ago like I mattered. “I didn’t mean to make it weird,” I said, forcing a crooked little breath of a laugh that hurt my throat. “I’m just… d-drunk. And…and fucked up. And b-bad at this.”
That was the lie. The truth was that I wasn’t bad at it. I was too good at wanting. I needed it. Needed him.
When he finally looked at me, I saw something breaking open in him that he didn’t know how to survive. Which meant he couldn’t survive me either. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said quietly.
I nodded like that fixed it. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t. I turned before he could say anything else that might stay with me forever branded into my skin. Before hecould say something kind that I’d cling to. Before he could say nothing. Again.
I walked back toward the dunes, the party noise rising around me once more, the ocean roaring like it was laughing at how small I felt now.
Behind me, he didn’t follow. That was how it became a wound. Not because he pulled away.
But because he didn’t pull me back. Once again I was alone. Abandoned. I thought he was different.
But it was all a lie.
CHAPTER 10
ANTHONY
Daddy.
Who knew one word could hold so much power. Who knew a single word could knock your entire world off its axis.
My reaction wasn’t intentional. I didn’t mean to hurt him when I’d promised not to. When I’d promised to stay no matter what. But the way every muscle in my body seized up was involuntary. Instinctive.
That word carried too many meanings. Too many layers. I hadn’t known it could reach so far inside me. But it did. It came ungloved, raw, and suddenly I was facing versions of myself I didn’t recognize.
So many possible meanings. So many versions of me it could belong to.
And I just… froze.
