His expression barely shifts, but something sharp glints in his eyes.
“I’m controlling. I won’t deny that. I’ve spent my entire life controlling every variable around me because it’s the only way to keep the people I care about safe.”
I stiffen. The people he cares about? That can’t include me. Not yet. But the room feels too small suddenly, the air too thick.
He steps closer. “Why does it bother you so much?”
I open my mouth, but the words that rise up feel too vulnerable and exposed. I try to swallow them down, but he just waits, that infuriating quiet forcing honesty out of me.
“I’ve never lived with someone who actually gives a damn about whether I survive.”
Silence settles between us.
He breathes once, sharp and low.
I look away quickly, ashamed of how raw it sounds. I wrap my arms around my stomach without thinking, protecting the secret he can never know. “I just want my life back.”
I turn away, unable to look at him anymore because the truth sits heavy and complicated inside me.
9
SAMUIL
Her words hit something in me I’m not prepared to feel. The impact is like a punch to the ribs, sharp enough that, for a moment, I forget to breathe. She stands in the glow of the city lights, shoulders rigid, jaw set in defiance. Her back is to me now, but the look in her eyes a moment ago is already seared into my memory forever.
She’s been through something dark. She may never feel comfortable enough to share it with me, but I see it in her eyes. I hear it in the words she doesn’t say. I want to take all that pain away, to wrap her in my arms and hold her until nothing exists but the two of us.
I swallow and feel the weight of the sentence settle between us. It’s heavy and uncomfortable, but intimate in a way that makes my pulse tighten. A muscle in her jaw flickers, and she wraps her arms around herself like she’s preparing for a blow she expects to come.
I have the strangest urge to go to her. To lift her arms away from her body and pull her against me. I want to show her she can be soft and vulnerable, that she never has to worry whether someone will take care of her.
Instead, I clear my throat because if I touch her now, I won’t stop there.
“Come sit,” I say quietly.
She hesitates, but eventually walks toward the kitchen table. Her posture is stiff, her chin high, and every part of her fighting not to show how vulnerable she feels. I reach for a bottle of vodka out of habit and unscrew the cap, but she lifts a hand.
“No,” she says. “I don’t want a drink.”
“It’ll relax you,” I tell her. “You look like you’re vibrating out of your skin.”
“I can’t,” she says, and something in her voice shifts. A new tension. A tiny crack. “I’m on a new medicine. You’re not supposed to drink on it.”
It’s a reasonable answer, but her eyes slide away when she says it, and something in her tone is off. I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t push. I watch her for a long moment, filing away the unease building under her words.
Instead, I set the vodka aside and pour her a glass of water. I push the glass toward her. She takes it and holds it between both hands like she needs something solid to cling to.
She sits in silence for a long time before speaking again.
“I grew up in foster care,” she says quietly. “I moved around a lot. Nobody ever seemed to want me for very long. There were so many different houses, so many different rules, so many people who didn’t actually care if I was taken care of. They just wanted the paycheck that came from the state. I learned to survive by keeping my head down and carrying my own weight.”
I lean against the counter slowly, trying not to show how her words affect me. But something dark and protective curls deep in my chest, growing heavier with every sentence.
She twists the water glass between her palms, staring at the table.
“When you grow up like that, you learn not to depend on anyone. You learn not to believe anyone who says they care. Because people leave. They always leave. Or worse, they stay and make you wish they hadn’t.”
She takes a shaky breath.
