There it is. The line in the sand. I feel it immediately, a sharp irritation that crawls up my spine and settles behind my eyes. I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to.
“I don’t like the idea of you going off alone after what happened earlier,” I say. “Someone tried to hurt me. That puts you in the frame too.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“That’s not the point.”
She turns fully toward me now, and the walls are back up, solid and familiar. “Then what is?”
I keep my gaze forward. “You just told me you needed space,” I say. “Fine. I heard you. But we’re not doing that thing where you disappear again and leave me guessing who you’re with or whether you’re safe.”
Her lips press together. “I’m not disappearing. I’m going home.”
“With people I don’t know. At night. After you yanked me out of the way of a speeding car.”
She doesn’t blink. Not once. “Ethan. You don’t get to police where I go or who I see just because we’re having sex.”
It’s as if she knows where to aim her words and she’s doing it because she wants me to pull back. I take a moment. “It isn’t just sex.”
Her mouth twitches, like she might argue, then flattens. “It’s intense, and it’s good. But I’m still me. And I still have my life.”
I exhale through my nose and adjust my grip on the wheel, forcing my hands to loosen before they do something stupid. I don’t want to scare her, and I don’t want to give her another reason to pull back, but I also refuse to pretend this is nothing.
“I’m not trying to own you,” I say. “I’m trying to understand why you’re pulling away this fast.”
Her shoulders rise and fall. “Because intensity doesn’t mean security. Because I’ve been here before. Because I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I let someone else set the terms of my life again.”
That one stings, and I let it, because she’s not wrong to say it. She just isn’t right to say it to me.
“I’m not your ex,” I say.
“I know,” she replies, and that’s somehow worse. “That’s why this is harder.”
We drive the rest of the way with the tension sitting between us, not explosive, just dense and unresolved. I watch the street signs roll past and commit the route to memory out of habit, even though I already know it. She’s quiet now, her gaze fixed forward again, and the space between us feels wider than the seat would suggest.
When I pull up in front of her place, I don’t get out of the car. Neither does she. The engine idles, as I wait for her to look at me, but she doesn’t.
I grip the steering wheel tighter and glance over at her. She’s tucked into the passenger seat like she’s trying to shrink into the upholstery. She doesn’t look scared, though, if anything, it’s like she’s doing damage control. It’s the same withdrawal I clocked at the office, except this time, I’m part of the reason she’s retreating.
I breathe through the urge to grip the wheel until my knuckles crack. “I know you’re not in the best headspace right now, Lila.”
“Do you?” she tiredly asks.
I talk through the knot in my throat, because the words need to come out. “I’m not trying to control you,” I say. “But I care. That’s not optional now. So if I sound like an asshole, it’s because I don’t like not knowing who’s in your life or how easily someone could take a swing at you and I wouldn’t even know where to look.”
She exhales, shoulders slumping just slightly. “I didn’t mean to make this hard.”
“I know.”
We sit there for a second. The streetlights cast long shadows across the hood, and she finally looks over.
“I’m not running,” she says softly. “I just need a second to feel normal again.”
That’s fair.
She gathers her bag but doesn’t reach for the door right away.
“I’ll text you,” she says.
