“I didn’t ask for this,” I reply.
He doesn’t pull away.
His mouth brushes mine – barely a kiss, more an insistence. A reminder. A claim disguised as comfort.
I turn my head and the contact breaks. My heart pangs. I bury it, stepping back sharply, heart pounding now, anger surging up to meet the hurt. “You don’t get to do that.”
Snow blinks, thrown. “Kayla?—”
“You don’t get to touch me when you won’t be honest with me,” I say. “You don’t get to use this to cover up what you’re refusing to say.”
“That wasn’t?—”
“That was control,” I snap. “Soft control, but control all the same. If you’re trying to control me, you’re no better thanthem.”
He runs a hand through his hair, frustration flashing across his face. “You’re reading this wrong.”
“No,” I say. “I’m reading it clearly for the first time.”
His voice drops. “If you go back now, you could lose everything.”
“I’ve already lost everything.”
His eyes search mine. “What?”
“All trust is gone. I’m going alone.”
The word sits between us, heavy and immovable.
“You don’t mean that,” he says.
“I do.”
He reaches for me again, this time catching my wrist lightly, as if to anchor me, to stop me from stepping away. The contact is brief. Controlled.
Unwanted.
I pull free immediately. “Don’t.”
He releases me, hands lifting in a gesture that’s supposed to look conciliatory. It doesn’t.
“I can’t tell you everything,” he says quietly.
“Then you don’t get to decide anything,” I reply.
I move to pass him again.
This time, he doesn’t mirror me.
He steps into my path.
Not hard. Not aggressive. Just enough to remove the option of walking away.
“Kayla,” he says again, and now there’s an edge to it. “Stop.”
Something in me tightens.
“Move,” I reply.
