Ethan’s eyes stay on me as I hover near the edge of the patio, cradling my mug like it’s the only thing keeping me upright. I sip,trying to calm the tremor in my fingers, but the coffee only spreads heat across a body that feels ice-cold inside.
He doesn’t push. He watches me with that quiet, steady awareness that makes everything inside me want to crumble.
“Lucky… you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie, tugging the cardigan tighter around me. “Just tired.”
The lie hangs between us, thick and obvious, but he lets it be. For me. For whatever he thinks I need.
He nods slowly, like he’s making a decision. “I’ll give you a bit of space then.” His tone is gentle, careful—like he’s talking to a skittish animal he doesn’t want to startle. “But I’m here. A few steps away. You just say the word.”
When he moves to go inside, he pauses. Looks at me again. Something tightens in his jaw—not anger, not frustration, just concern that’s trying not to become fear.
“Come here,” he murmurs.
I do, because refusing him feels too complicated, and because my legs seem to move without my permission. Ethan hugs me—solid, warm, grounding. His arms wrap around me like walls built fast and strong. For a moment, my cheek against his bare chest, I almost let myself lean. Almost.
But the fear is already tightening, crowding out everything soft.
He releases me slowly. “If you need anything—anything—you call for me.”
I nod. A silent promise I know I won’t keep.
Ethan disappears down the hallway to get dressed, and as soon as the front door clicks shut, something in me snaps.
I rush inside, mug abandoned, heart jackhammering.
The lake house suddenly feels too open. Too exposed. Every shadow looks like movement. Every creak of the wooden beams sounds like footsteps inside my memory.
I lock and bolt the front door. Then the back. Then the side door.
Windows—every latch clicked. Curtains—yanked shut until the daylight is smothered.
My breath is thin, ragged. The house feels smaller with each lock I throw, like the walls are shrinking inward.
When I reach the front door again, something inside me breaks completely.
I sink to the floor of the hallway, knees pulled to my chest. The cardigan pools around me like armor that doesn’t work. I rockwithout realizing I’m doing it—forward and back, forward and back—trying to reassemble the pieces of myself that feel scattered across the years.
“He can’t get in,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to my knees.
“He can’t get in. Not here. Not here.”
Over and over, the mantra spilling out in a cracked whisper.
But the shaking won’t stop.
And for the first time since last night, I feel the cold edge of the truth:
I am not safe.
Not really.
Not anywhere.
Not while he’s out.
Chapter 21
