The second my door clicks shut, I regret it.
Not walking away. Not closing my door. Not even the boundary, because boundaries are the only reason I’m still functioning.
I regret the look on his face.
That flash of something that wasn’t cocky or amused or infuriating—something soft. Something like he’d been about to step into warmth, and I slammed the window closed on his fingers.
I press my forehead against the wood and inhale through my nose until my lungs stop shaking.
I don’t have space for you.
It is true.
It is also a lie.
Because the problem isn’t space.
The problem is that the moment I make space for Logan, he fills it.
Not in a suffocating way. In a way that feels…good. Familiar. Dangerous. Like the kind of thing my body recognizes as relief.
And I can’t afford the relief that comes with strings.
I can’t afford anything that feels like hope.
Because hope is greedy. Hope makes you forget what’s coming.
I slide down the door until I’m sitting on the carpet, hoodie sleeves pulled over my hands like that’s going to keep me from unraveling.
My heart is still pounding from the way he leaned in.
Slow. Controlled. Like he was asking.
And the terrifying part is that I almost said yes.
I almost let myself.
I almost did something that would make this house explode in a different direction—one I don’t have energy for, one I don’t have the right to want when Pops is down the hall and my brother is barely holding on and everything is already broken.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
This is not the time.
Except my brain, traitor that it is, supplies a different thought, like it’s obvious.
When is the time?
I swallow hard and stand up.
I don’t let myself sit too long anymore. Sitting turns into spiraling, spiraling turns into crying, crying turns into the kind of loss of control I can’t take back.
So I move.
I go to my dresser and open a drawer like I’m looking for something.
I’m not.
I’m just proving to myself I can do normal actions without falling apart.
