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And me? Christian Bale. Every single time. No contest.

I’d give anything to hear that fight again—to hear anything but this suffocating quiet that settles heavy as the dirt over Scarlett’s grave. A silence that reminds me I’m still here and they’re not.

I swallow the ache clawing up my throat.

“What? You plan to sit there long enough to see if I’ll shatter?”

I don’t plan the words. I don’t weigh them. I just let them go, sharp and messy, like glass breaking loose in my mouth. I need him to react—to shift, to blink, to prove I’m not the only thing still breathing in this room.

The regret hits fast, hot in my throat, but I don’t reach for it. I let it burn.

I’m too tired of the quiet. Too tired of sitting under his stare, pinned there by it, like something already measured and waiting to be taken apart.

The chair creaks as he shifts, slow and deliberate, like every movement is a choice he makes on purpose. He doesn’t look away. He never does. His gaze locks onto mine, and the air thickens, heavy and smothering.

My skin prickles under his stare, every inch of me screaming to look away, to curl inward, to disappear.

I don’t.

He studies me in silence, and the longer it stretches, the more it feels like he’s peeling me open, layer by layer. Like a butcher measuring the cut, patient, precise. Finally, his mouth moves—not quite a smile, just a tight pull at the corner, like something jagged pressing up from underneath.

“You’re cracking,” he says. “It’s just a matter of when you stop pretending you aren’t.”

No softness. No threat.

Just the kind of certainty that comes from a man who’s watched things break and knows exactly what it looks like before it happens.

It lands with a force I don’t want to feel, slamming straight into the part of me that still expects people to stay. It hits harder than I’ll ever admit—hard enough that I feel it echo in the empty places I try to ignore.

I roll onto my back, staring at the popcorn ceiling. The silence slams down again, crushing me flat, pressing until my lungs burn for air that still tastes faintly of bleach and dirt.

For a heartbeat, the silence between us feels different—like maybe it can hold something other than damage. Then it passes. The room stays cold. He stays where he is, all edges and distance, and whatever I thought I’d felt slips out of reach.

I should’ve known better. Still, it flickered there for a second. And even now, with everything in pieces, that small, stupid part of me mourns it when it is gone.

He looks at the untouched water glass. The untouched food. The way my hand shakes even though I’m lying still. Then back to me.

Something in his face closes.

Enough.

Malek finally moves. The chair scrapes once—violent in the quiet.

His hand is on me before I can react—iron fingers clamping my arm, yanking me upright so fast the ceiling lurches. My shoulder screams, a bright white snap of pain, but he doesn’t slow. He doesn’t even register it. Whatever’s driving him isn’t in this room with me.

He drags me down the hall like I weigh nothing. My feet skid, catch on the floor, scrape skin raw. His boots pound the wood, each step jarring through my bones.

The bathroom door explodes open.

He shoves me inside. My back hits tile, breath punching out of me, and then his hand twists the knob and the shower roars to life⁠—

Ice.

It slams into me, brutal and merciless, slicing through skin, through muscle, through whatever numb place I’ve been hiding in. My body locks up. I gasp, choke, teeth clacking so hard my jaw aches. My heart spikes, wild and panicked, like it’s trying to claw its way out.

“Malek!” I sputter. “What the—what the fuck is wrong with you!”

He doesn’t answer.