I pulled free. “I need air.”
“Seth, wait.”
I didn’t. He meant well. He always did. But good intentions felt like chains right now, and if I stopped, even for a second, I knew everything would crash into me at once.
I kept walking. Past the stands. Past the snack bar. Past the doors that slammed shut behind me with a short thud. The cold night air hit my face. The world tilted. I blinked hard, trying to steady it, but the rink still spun somewhere behind me like a flashing warning light.
I didn’t know where I was going. That was the whole point. If I didn’t know, then nobody else could figure it out either. Not Silas with his worried eyes. Not Nick with his judgmentsharpened like a razor. And not Damon, who had promised I would not get caught, who had sworn we would be careful, even though neither of us had ever been good at careful.
It wasn’t fair to throw that at him. I knew it wasn’t. My heart did it anyway, and I hated myself for it.
I walked until the frost stung my cheeks. Somewhere along the way, I ended up behind the science building, staring at the metal fire escape ladder that stretched into the dark. Climbing felt like instinct. One step at a time. Wind rising with every level. When I reached the top, I stepped onto the flat roof and leaned forward, trying to breathe through the knot in my throat.
The wind didn’t let up. It pushed at me from every direction. It made my eyes water until I wasn’t sure whether the cold was making me cry or if it was everything else.
The clanging of the fire escape cut through the wind. Heavy steps and familiar rhythm. I braced myself without looking.
Of course he found me.
Damon climbed onto the roof. The light from the campus path hit his face just enough to show how wrecked he looked. His posture wasn’t cocky anymore. There was nothing playful in him now.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was raw. “I didn’t mean for it to happen like that.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I said.
He bit his lip. A tiny, quick motion. A tell he usually hid. There was plenty to be sorry about. We both knew it.
I turned my face away, letting the cold burn my eyes even more. It felt easier to deal with the wind than with him. “I knew this would happen.”
Damon stepped closer. “What do we do?”
“What can we do?”
He opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “I don’t know. We can ignore him. We can…”
“Keep lying,” I said. I turned and faced him. His expression tightened. I shook my head. “We’re at the end of the road.”
He stilled. I watched the words land. He hid it well, but something in his shoulders dropped, almost a flinch. “If that’s how you feel…”
I didn’t answer. The silence stretched. A month of shared nights and stupid jokes and warm mornings pressed at my ribs, begging to be acknowledged, but I kept it all inside. That was what we had agreed on, in our own way. Honest in actions, dishonest in everything else.
Damon looked away first. Pride. Always pride. “If you want to let Nick control you, then there is nothing for me here.”
I rolled my eyes. “Give me a break.”
He huffed a humorless laugh. “What? You’re the one giving in to his demands. You’re the one who’s worried about what he has to say.”
“What does he have to say, Damon?” I asked quietly. There had to be something.
He froze. His jaw tightened. His gaze flickered away, then back. He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You’ve made up your mind.”
I let it sit there. If he wanted to pretend this was all coming from me, so be it. He had always been ready to cut his losses before things hit the breaking point. It was who he was. It was who I was stupid enough to hope he would stop being.
He walked toward the edge of the roof. He swung his leg over the ledge, hands gripping the top bar of the fire escape. He paused there, looking at nothing.
“We could have had more,” he said quietly.
“Too late for that.” My voice felt thin. “We never talked about anything real anyway. You never talked about what happened back then. Or why you drifted off. Or what went wrongbetween you and Nick. So why pretend any of this was heading somewhere?”