But my body doesn't believe it.
I lie there in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, feeling my pulse hammer against my ribs.My shoulders ache from holding tension all night.My jaw hurts from clenching.Even my hands feel stiff, like I've been making fists in my sleep.
Declan was at the pub yesterday.
The thought loops endlessly, inescapable.
He was there.Real.Not a ghost or a nightmare but flesh and blood, standing at my bar, staring at me with that look I remember all too well.That quiet confidence.That possessive certainty.
Like I still belong to him.
I drag myself out of bed, wrap a cardigan around my shoulders, and move through the flat checking locks.Front door, deadbolt and chain.Windows, latched.Balcony, locked.Everything is secure.
It doesn't make me feel safer.
I stand at the living room window and pull the curtain back just enough to see the street below.Empty.Just parked cars and streetlights casting orange pools on the wet pavement.
No shadows.No movement.No Declan.
But he's out there somewhere.Watching.Waiting.
You look different.
The message echoes in my head.I deleted it but the words are burned into my brain.He saw me.Recently enough to notice I look different.
Which means he's been close.He’s following me.Watching.
For how long?
My stomach turns.I press my hand against the glass, feeling the cold seep through.
How much has he seen?Does he know where I live?Did he see Warren?Does he know Mam’s living with us?
Does he know about Tank?
The thought makes me feel sick.If Declan saw me with Tank, at the clubhouse, leaving together, anything, he'll think...Christ, I don't even want to imagine what he'll think.
What he'll do.
I drop the curtain and step back from the window.My hands are shaking again.They’ve been shaking on and off since yesterday, fine tremors I can't control.
I make tea I don't want.Stand in the kitchen watching the kettle boil, trying to ground myself in something normal.Something routine.
But nothing feels normal anymore.
Warren wakes around seven.I hear him padding down the hallway, bare feet on the floorboards, and force myself to straighten.Put on a smile.Be Mam.
He appears in the kitchen doorway, hair sticking up, rubbing his eyes."Morning."
"Morning, love."My voice sounds almost normal.Almost."Sleep alright?"
"Yeah."He climbs onto a chair at the table."Can I have pancakes?"
"Course you can."
I make pancakes on autopilot, hands moving through familiar motions while my mind races elsewhere.Warren chatters about a friend's birthday party, and I nod and make appropriate sounds but I'm barely listening.
I'm thinking about the walk to school.The route we take every day.How exposed we'll be.
