I sit there in the sudden silence, leg throbbing, lips swollen, t-shirt twisted, the taste of him still on my tongue. The baking show is still playing—someone’s cake has collapsed into a sad, lopsided mess. The smell of Thai food and roses fills the room.
My phone buzzes again on the pillow beside me.
Tristan.
I don’t reach for it.
Instead I stare at the massive arrangement of flowers Drew sent—the ones I thought were from someone else.
And for the first time since the injury, the pain in my leg feels like the least complicated thing in the room.
I close my eyes and let the tears that have been building since the hospital finally fall.
Because Drew was right about one thing.
I am in trouble.
And I have no idea which man is going to break me first.
Chapter Six
ISA
By the timeNovember turns cold enough to bite through leggings at night, people have stopped asking if Tristan and I are a thing.
They just assume we are.
That’s the problem.
It’s not one big moment that gets me there.
It’s accumulation.
The way he waits for me after rehab.
The way he slows his walk without making it obvious because the boot throws my stride off if I move too fast.
The hand he always offers automatically on stairs.
The way he carries my backpack like it annoys him that I’m trying to do too much on one leg.
The lunches.
The studying.
The fact that when he texts me goodnight, it no longer feels like flirtation.
It feels like routine.
Like mine.
Like him.
And because I’m seventeen different flavors of stupid where he’s concerned, I let that mean something.
The library smells like paper and coffee and dust warmed over by old heat vents.
Quiet.
