Why did she follow?
No—wrong question.
Why did I think shewouldn't?
Nobody has seen me like that in years. Nobody. I made sure of it. For years, every woman I fucked, I fucked from behind—my control, my rules. In the dark. No questions. No looks, greedy or, even worse, pitying. I didn't allow intimacy because intimacy invites curiosity, and curiosity leads to scars, and scars lead to explanations I refuse to give.
It was fine. It worked.
I didn't need more.
But Jenna?—
Shit.
It's been inevitable since the second she walked back into my life, hasn't it? Bound to happen the moment she stopped looking at me like a monster and started looking at me like a man she once loved. Until she saw them.
The look on her face when I snapped at her.
Not fear.
Hurt.
That same fucking hurt I put there ten years ago without knowing it.
"Fuck," I breathe, already moving.
I adjust the towel around my waist and stride out of the bathroom without thinking; the water is still running. "Jenna."
She's sitting on my bed. Still. Straight-backed. Like she's been waiting for me. Like she knew I'd come after her. That sight hits harder than any bullet ever has.
"You shouldn't have seen that," my voice is rough, uselessly defensive.
She looks up at me slowly. No tears now. Just that steady, devastating calm.
"I didn't follow you to hurt you," she explains quietly. "I followed because I needed to talk to you. And I thought… I thought you understood."
"Understood what?" I ask, genuinely thrown. "You told me to take a shower."
She makes a small sound, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. "The cue," she says. "I needed to talk to you alone.Go take a shower."
I rake a hand through my still-dry hair, irritation mixing with something dangerously close to amusement. "I'm sorry," I apologize flatly. "I don't think I speakparentjust yet."
That gets me a smile. Not polite. Not cautious. Real.
"You will," she promises simply.
Two words. That's all. They hit me harder than the car that ran me over. Something in my chest jumps, sharp, uninvited. Hope is a dangerous thing in my world. I learned that young. I learned it with blood. But standing there, half-dressed, stripped down in ways I never allow, I feel it anyway. It's not fear or anger. It's something staking a claim.
I don't answer her right away. I just look at her, really look at her, and suddenly I get it: This woman isn't asking permission. She's stating a future.
I take a step closer, then another, stopping just short of her. My hands curl into fists at my sides, and my knuckles are white from the strain. I feel stripped bare in a way no nakedness ever accomplished.
"I don't want you to see me like that," I admit finally, the truth rips itself out of me before I can stop it. "Broken. Marked. Like something that survived instead of something that lived."
She stands. Slow. Careful. Like she's approaching a wounded animal that might bite.
"You think the sight of your scars will scare me?" she asks softly. "You think I don't understand what survival costs?" That lands. Hard. "I spent ten years thinking you left me," she continues. "Thinking I wasn't enough to make you stay. And now I find out you were paying to stay alive, piece by piece."
