He frowns, blinks, and then—he starts laughing. Tips his head back against the wall, hand covering his mouth as hemutters something that sounds a lot like "you've got to be fucking kidding me."
"And what exactly is so funny?" I snap.
"I mean, life?" he says, letting out the last strained laugh. Then he straightens, like he suddenly realized something, and looks at me. "Wait. You think I moved here because of you?"
I hate how he says it. Like the thought is ridiculous. Like I'm ridiculous.
"I don't think anything," I snap.I don't think about you at all.
Jabbing the button for twenty, I keep my face forward, hoping that's the end of it, but something about it makes him laugh again.
I never thought seeing Ben again would carry this much homicidal energy in the first sixty seconds.
But then again, it's Ben—he owns some cosmic birthright to always get under my skin.
I turn to him, ready to assassinate, but he gives me the fake puppy-eyed look, almost pitiful because I'm not on the joke yet. That comes a second after when he leans in and presses his floor. Twenty-one.
I swallow hard.Twenty-one?
He lives one floor above me?!
No way.
The door closes sealing us inside, and my heart lurches like the elevator's free-falling, even though it crawls, painfully slow. Slow enough that I can't resist—we lock gaze in the mirror.
Hold for a second.
Veer off.
Like magnets flipped the other way.
I catch his eyes in the mirror, tracing my body. Not in a casual glance, but mapping every curve he remembers. Openly. Shamelessly.
He told me once that my curves were built for destruction. I hope he meant his.
And yeah, I absolutely weaponized them however I could even though they were never useful. They just made him stare. Like now.
I cross my arms and shoot him a pointed "ehem."
It doesn't throw him off, he just frowns and says, "You're different. And thinner." His voice is laced more with worry than mockery, but still—the nerve.
Different? Thinner? If I was out of this coffin of a dress and in my jeans, he'd choke.
"Seriously?" I stab him with my eyes. "That'syouropener after three years?"
Still unfazed, he scans me one more time, frowning. "I just want to know you're good... Are you?"
I breathe in, tempted to tell him he's right, that Iamdifferent now. I'm not the Emma he knew, who was reckless, and wouldn't have known her own worth even if it stood in front of her.
I'm settled, balanced, and won't let anyone to disrupt that. But I stay quiet.
Let him feel what it's like to be left on read in real life.
When I don't answer, he says, "Don't worry. You still lookgood." The smirk in it practically audible.
I manage a polite "Thanks. So do you," and make the mistake of flicking my eyes to him.
Understatement of the century. Looking at him hurts like staring directly in the sun.
