It’s the only thing I can manage, barely a whisper. Because this… this can’t be real.
Calvin wants me.
And now that I know it, I can’t unknow it. It’s carved into my skin, pulsing in my veins. There’s no pretending anymore, no safe place to hide the way my body reacts when he so much as looks at me like that.
It was easier when it was just my secret. My shame. At least then I had the illusion of control. At least then I wasn’t betrayingher. But this? This is wildfire.
I place the tulips gently between us, like they might absorb the heat radiating off my skin. The soft scent of petals clashes with the sharp tang of adrenaline flooding my body.
“No.” My voice is a thread. I try again, stronger. “This can’t… thiswon’thappen.”
The words spill out too fast, too brittle. They don’t sound like conviction. They sound like a girl trying to lie to herself in the dark.
He doesn’t argue. Just reclines slightly in his seat, mouth curving ever so slightly.
And then, he hums. A low, almost amused sound that makes my spine go rigid.
“What?” I snap. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Just… coming to a realization.”
“And what realization is that?”
He shrugs casually, but his eyes tell a different story, lit with heat, hunger, and restraint pulled tight like a fraying rope.
“That this,” he says slowly, “is already happening.”
My pulse nosedives straight into my stomach.
“It’s not,” I fire back, too fast, but the tremor in my voice betrays me. It betrays everything.
And the way he looks at me in that moment, like he’s already pulled the thread and watched me come undone, makes something in me unravel.
Because he knows.
And now, so do I.
I can’t be this girl.
I amnotthis girl.
Not the girl who wants what she can’t have, shouldn’t dare to have.
But the arrogance in his voice… it’s like it’s already written. Like my falling into his bed is a foregone conclusion. As though he’s already seen the ending and is just waiting for me to catch up.
I’m seconds away from snapping, from telling him exactly where he can shove that smug confidence, when Jarad’s voice crackles from the front seat.
“We’re here, sir.”
The car slows, turning down a quiet, tree-lined street. Too familiar. My parents’ porch light glows in the distance like a warning flare.
The second the car stops, I bolt. I don’t wait for him to speak. I don’t give him the chance. This can’t be real. This shouldn’t be real.
It was reckless. Inappropriate. Wrong. But it happened, and now the question isn’t ‘what do I do about it?’ It’s ‘how do I stop it from happening again?’ I’ll stay away from him. That’s it. I have to.
Even knowing this strange, invisible pull goes both ways, I’ll keep my distance.
I rake my fingers through my hair, my breath shaky, trying to calm the riot inside me. The heavy, suffocating guilt rolls in. Who am I if I can’t control this? And what will become of me, of my sister, if I let it win?
