But her?
Like this?
Her fury slides under my skin, hot and addictive.
“Keep screaming,” I mutter. “Go on. You think it pushes me away? You think I’m scared of your little meltdown?”
She stops suddenly.
Stands still.
Chest rising and falling too fast.
Her voice drops to a knife-edged whisper: “I’d tell you everything I didn’t say four years ago.”
I inhale sharply.
Now that—that hits.
My jaw tenses.
My pulse does that slow, dark thud that only she’s ever been able to drag out of me.
Everything she didn’t say?
Oh, I know.
I know every word she choked down.
Every truth she swallowed.
Every lie she spat into the courtroom air while looking like she was breaking her own ribs to do it.
That version of her—the girl who lied to save me, then lied to bury me—she’s still in there.
I can see it now.
In every furious shake of her shoulders.
“You want to talk?” I whisper, stepping one silent foot closer—not enough for her to notice, but enough for the scent of her anger to hit me stronger. “Then come find me.”
She doesn’t hear the words.
She only feels something—some shift in the air—because she spins again, wild-eyed, searching the trees.
I feel it—the moment her instincts lock onto where I’m standing, even if her eyes don’t.
Her breath catches.
She points into the darkness.
“I KNOW YOU’RE THERE!”
A low sound slips out of me—half laugh, half something darker.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “You always did.”
She bolts back toward the house, still shaking, still furious, still muttering curses under her breath like they’re prayers.
