Zack flinches, a momentary thing, but it’s his own language that I’m starting to understand.
And for a second, I think he’s going to open up—really open up, like he did earlier in the kitchen. But then he looks away. His hand curls in on itself on the table, knuckles whitening as he releases a slow measured breath.
“Hazel,” he says again, this time with that warning edge he gets when he’s trying to keep control. “Can we…not do this right now?”
I just want him to like me, to trust me. I lean forward, elbows on the table, ignoring the cold knot forming in my chest. “You can talk to me, you know. I’m not going to fall apart.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?” I push. “Because you keep doing this thing where you let me in for half a second, and then you slam the door shut. And I get it, I do. But I’m here, Zack. I’m trying. You don’t have to keep shutting me out.”
He finally looks at me. Really looks.
And the expression on his face isn’t anger. It isn’t annoyance.
It’s fear.
Not the panicked kind. Not the running kind. The deep kind. The kind that sits in your bones when you’ve already lost too much and can’t afford to lose more.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.
“You’re not,” I say, even though technically he kind of is.
His mouth pulls into a tight line. “Hazel. What we’re walking into tomorrow…it’s not something you can unsee. And it’s not something I want to drag you into any deeper.”
“But I’m already in it.”
He closes his eyes for half a second, like the truth physically pains him.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “You are.”
His hands are shaking. Just a little, but enough.
I reach out, slow enough that he could pull away if he wants to—which he does; his hand flying off the table like my touch is a burning stove.
I swallow hard, pretending it doesn’t feel like a punch to the ribs as he fully shuts me out.
“Zack,” I whisper.
But he’s already retreating behind the walls again, shutters slamming down one by one, until I can practically hear the lock turning. His eyes close for a millisecond, as if just being around me is painful for him.
“This is how it has to be,” he says, his voice flat. Controlled. “For tonight, just…let it go.”
I nod, because I don’t know what else to do. But something in my chest fractures. The bubble is gone—that little bit of warmth and light that was surrounding us—like the morning light that would bring the new day.
Just like that, I’m back in a kitchen where everyone is hiding something.
And Zack is a fortress again, staring down at his empty plate like it holds all the answers he refuses to give me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A LITTLE DEATH
ZACK
The morning hits like punishment.
Not the soft, forgiving kind where sunlight drips lazily through curtains. This morning is sharp and cold, carving across my bedroom floor in thin, merciless stripes that remind me I barely slept. My body feels heavy with the weight of everything unsaid, everything I shut down last night. I sit on the edge of my bed with my elbows on my knees, palms pressed to my eyes as I try to breathe over the noise in my skull. Little specks dance around my vision, and they remind me of all the things that remain hidden. The noise hasn’t stopped since Hazel said my name with that quiet fracture in her voice. I shouldn’t have pulled away from her, I know that. But knowing doesn’t rewind time or fix what I broke.
