I picture Boone, phone in hand, jaw clenched, scrolling.
I picture Silas pretending to laugh it off, then quietly trying to figure out how to make everything better with a party and a joke.
Shame floods through me.
“I don’t want them to see me like this,” I mumble, folding an arm over my face. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”
There it is.
The root of the panic. Not just that they know, but that they can see. That my humiliation is happening under a microscope.
“I think…” I just about manage to gasp out. “I need to spend tonight… alone. I just… I need to think.”
The words tumble out of me like I’ve knocked over another bowl, like I’m watching myself from somewhere outside my own skin.
I’m on my feet before he’s even processed it, glass of water clutched in my hand, heart sprinting like I’m running from a fire.
“Delaney…”
His voice catches me between the ribs.
I don’t look back.
If I look at his face, I’ll stay. I know that with a bone-deep certainty that terrifies me. I’ll stay and I’ll cry on his flannel and I’ll let him be kind to me and I’ll want things I don’t deserve.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Silas
The house is too damnquiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet, either. Not the early morning, coffee brewing, sun through the kitchen window kind.
No, this is the awkward, heavy, everyone is thinking too loud quiet.
The kind of quiet that settles after an explosion.
The kind that saysyou really messed up, buddy, even if technically, I didn’t do anything wrong.
Or maybe I did. I don’t know.
Hard to tell when no one is talking to me.
I stand in the hallway between the kitchen and the living room, coffee mug in hand, staring at three closed doors.
Delaney’s door: closed.
Caleb’s door: closed.
Boone’s office door: also closed.
Fantastic.
Two nights ago was… well, it was a lot of things. Incredible, yes. Hot enough to fry brain cells, absolutely. A long time coming? Probably. And for about fifteen minutes afterward I’d felt… calm. Peaceful, even. Something had finally clicked into place.
Then everyone scattered, fast as feral cats in a thunderstorm.
Delaney didn’t meet anyone’s eyes this morning. Barely said good morning. She’d tied her hair in a messy knot that looked more a shield than a hairstyle and disappeared into her room before I could charm even a single smile out of her.
