And somewhere deep in the woods behind the house?—
I swear something shifts in the shadows.
Watching.
Waiting.
Listening.
Like he already knows:
I’m about to lie to both of them.
Again.
Noah watches me like he’s waiting for a crack to appear —not because he wants to fix it, but because he wants to crawl inside it and own whatever breaks.
My back hits the vanity.
The glass bottles on the mirrored tray clink softly, chiming like warning bells.
I swallow hard, throat scraped raw.
“Noah,” I manage, my voice barely there, “it’s no one. I told you.”
He steps closer.
Not fast.
Not dramatic.
Just… inevitable.
Like a tide swallowing sand.
“You keep saying that.” His tone is quiet enough to be worse than shouting. “Do you know what that makes me think?”
He reaches for my chin.
I flinch.
Minuscule, but he sees it.
He always sees it.
His fingers cup my jaw anyway, tilting my face up toward his as gently as someone putting their hand around a wounded animal —
gentle enough to pretend he isn’t the one doing the wounding.
“That you’re hiding something.”
My breath stutters.
“I’m not.”
His thumb traces my lower lip —the swollen part.
The bitten part.
