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It doesn’t. Nothing does.

I take a sip anyway, set the glass down, and realize I’m cold. Not just a little cold. That weird, creeping kind that starts in your hands and moves inward, like your body forgot how to regulate itself overnight.

“Great,” I whisper.

I rub my arms, but it doesn’t help. Of course it doesn’t. Because my body has decided today is the day to remind me I’m not entirely in control of it anymore. Hormones, stress, no sleep, no food worth mentioning—perfect conditions for feeling like I’ve been dropped into the wrong temperature.

I look at the sweater. It’s still on the chair where I left it. Soft. Neutral. Infuriatingly… right.

I glare at it. “Don’t.”

The sweater doesn’t listen. I walk over anyway.

“Absolutely not,” I say, picking it up. “We are not doing this.”

It’s warm. Or maybe that’s just my imagination.

I shake my head like that will reset something in my brain. “No. He doesn’t get to be right about this.”

He knows what I eat, what I don’t eat, when I start to feel off, how quickly I burn through whatever energy I have left. He probably clocked it before I did—the way I kept rubbing my arms last night, the way I leaned into him for warmth without thinking.

And instead of saying anything, he just⁠—

Sent a sweater.

I huff out a breath. “Unbelievable.”

I pull it over my head anyway. Because I’m cold. Because I’m tired. Because I don’t have the energy to fight a piece of clothing. It settles around me immediately, soft and warm and exactly the kind of oversized comfort I would have chosen myself if I’d had the patience to go shopping.

I hate it.

I hate that it fits.

I hate that it smells faintly like nothing—like he didn’t wear it, didn’t make it about himself, didn’t leave anything behind except the fact that he thought about me long enough to get the size right.

I wrap my arms around myself and sink back into the chair. “This is manipulative,” I tell the empty room.

Because it feels like it is. Not in a calculated way. Not in the way Alester manipulates things, with control and timing and audience.

In a worse way. In a quiet, knowing way. The kind that makes me feel seen when I don’t want to be. The kind that makes it harder to stay angry.

My phone buzzes again.

I don’t look at it. I already know what it is.

Nate, spiraling.

Simone, checking.

Dalton—

No. I shut that thought down immediately.

I lean back, pull my legs up onto the chair, and tuck them under me, letting the sweater swallow me up a little.

It helps. Of course it helps.

I press my face into my hands.