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“For your studio. So you don’t have to work at Diamond Lounge,” he says, like it’s the most casual thing in the world.

“No, Xander.”

His smile drops, and he goes as still as a statue.

Panic quickly starts to cloud my vision, my heart rapid.

“He took everything from me, Xander. Everything. For years. I couldn’t dance. He locked me in that house—” My voice cracks as I ramble, recalling the last nearly half of my life, no longer able to keep it inside me. All Luke did was control me. My life, my body.

My freedom is being ripped away again.

But it’s in the form of the man I thought I was genuinely falling for. Maybe I don’t know what love is after all.

Some sick part of me enjoyed the possessiveness. But seeing that cheque in front of my eyes has resurfaced everything I’ve been trying to fix within myself, shining a light on everything that’s wrong with me, and that this isn’t the way to fix me.

Xander

My gut drops as Camila’s voice cracks, tears welling up in her eyes. Her words stab me right in the chest.

She thinks I want to control her? All I want is for her to be safe. I can keep her safe. I can give her everything she wants and more.

“I’m not trying to—”

She huffs through the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. “You don’t get it, do you? You’re trying to control my life, Xander. This is all too much. The moving in, the phone, the car, the two dance studios… I can take care of myself. I don’t need you to do it for me. I need my freedom. I’ve been doing it by myself since I left. I don’t need a knight in shining armour to come to my rescue. I’m not some damsel in distress. I made it through two years. I will do it again. However long it takes. And if it means moving back into my apartment, then so be it,” she rattles out, her words almost unintelligible through the tears now running from her eyes.

No. No, no, no.

I fucked up. I fucked up.

I reach out towards her. “Angel, please, let me—”

“Don’t call me Angel,” she says, her voice shaking. I can feel my heart cracking by the second. “I’m going back, Xander.”

She paces the room, the sound of her heels scratching through me as I register her words. She’s leaving me forever.

“Fuck, I’ve been so stupid.”

I need to fix this.

How the fuck do I fix this?

Why isn’t she accepting my love?

She’s slipping away. Just like that. Within seconds, my world is being turned upside down. Just when I thought we were getting somewhere.

She sways on her feet, an emotionless laugh bursting through her lips. Her mossy eyes ping to me, but she looks right through me. She stumbles forward, and I catch her in my arms, her laugh still echoing throughout the room.

I drop to my knees, cradling her head in my lap.

“Angel?” I ask, trying to keep her head steady. She continues laughing, almost hysterically, tears rolling down her cheeks. I tap at her face, trying to snap her out of it as her eyes close. “Camila?”

I don’t know what the fuck to do, so I just sit there with her.

Until her laugh fades out, and her eyes close.

I carry her to my room.

I slip her dress off and pull my t-shirt over her.