Confusion knots my belly, and I start pacing the length of the room—bed to dresser, dresser to windows. The oldwood floors are cool under my feet. My body is too hot. My thoughts are hotter.
I hate the restless energy.
I hate that it feels too much like wanting.
Giving in to motion is the only thing that keeps me from splintering when I get like this. If I move, I don’t have to think. If I keep my mind on the next turn, the next step, maybe I don’t have to sit with what it meant for Ever to kiss me like that. Like a threat and a promise.
What it meant that Shiloh let it happen right in front of him.
“I’m just using them,” I whisper, stopping to brace my hands on the dresser and stare at my own reflection in the mirror. “That’s all this is.”
The woman in the glass looks wild-eyed and unconvinced.
“I’m here for information. I can leave whenever I want.”
That feels and sounds even worse. Because I’m not sure it’s true anymore.
I strip out of my clothes and leave them in a neat pile on the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed—some ridiculous antique thing with claw feet and faded floral fabric that probably cost more than I made in a month as an EMT back home.
Everything in this room feels inherited. Curated. Chosenby someone who never had to choose between groceries and gas.
Wrapping a towel around me, I peek into the hall, find it empty, and tiptoe across to the bathroom. I shower fast, letting the hot water pound against my shoulders while I try not to replay the night in pieces.
Ever’s mouth. Shiloh’s eyes.
The memory of a faceless man in a dark bathroom in a different town, with a different version of me.
I cut the water before I can spiral and go through the motions after—teeth, face, hair twisted up and pinned, sleep shirt dragged over still-damp skin.
A cloud of steam trails behind me when I leave the bathroom, more than likely the reason I fail to notice Ever before I crash into him. His hands grab my biceps in an automatic gesture as I careen into his chest, and a little squeak escapes me.
I can’t look at him. My gaze fixes on his cotton-covered chest, and all I’m aware of is the space between us.
Or the lack thereof.
“I-I’m sorry?—”
His fingers flex in my flesh, tightening almost painfully before he slowly, with painstaking deliberation, sets me away from him.
He stares at a point over my head, a muscle in his jaw clenching, then walks around me. I stand there foranother moment, then move into my room, feeling strangely rejected.
The storm has been building for an hour. I noticed it on the drive back in, the way the sky kept lighting up behind the trees, all silent flashes and brewing menace. Now thunder rolls heavy across the property, close enough to rattle the window glass in its frame.
I cross to the nightstand and touch the lamp. Not because it needs adjusting, but because I always do, just before I turn it on.
The lamp is old—real old, not department-store fake vintage. Heavy porcelain base, cream once upon a time but crazed now with hairline cracks. The shade is silk and hand-stitched and faintly yellowed at the seams. One side sits a little lower than the other, just enough to notice if you’re paying attention.
I turn it on and watch as the warm pool of amber spreads over the bedside table and the carved headboard.
There. The knot in my chest eases by a fraction. I leave this lamp on when I sleep.
Always.
No one here knows that. No one asked, and I’m not about to volunteer that I need a light at night because the dark still reaches inside me and finds the child locked in a closet with her hands over her ears while gunshots pop through the house like kernels in hot oil.
Pitch-black is a sinkhole memory I haven’t quite figured out how to swim my way through, other than by leaving a light on.
My fingers rest on the cool porcelain base for one extra beat. A stupid ritual. A silent count. Then I pull back the covers and slide into bed.
