You don’t get to rewrite it into something smaller because it’s easier for you now.
I know how you breathe when you’re scared.
I know how you sound when you try to pretend you’re not.
That doesn’t go away just because I’m not there to hear it.
CHAPTER 24
IVY
Over the next couple of days, Soren’s texts don’t let up.
The sheer volume of his attention should feel overwhelming. But it doesn’t. It feels steady, like a constant line running through my day. Something I can reach for without thinking. Like he’s threaded himself into the background of everything—quiet. Present. Waiting.
It’s almost like he’s here with me.
That should feel strange. Itisstrange.
But it’s also stabilizing somehow.
Like I have someone in my pocket I can turn to the second something inside me tilts.
I find myself telling him everything. Not the big things. The small ones. The stupid ones. What someone said to me at the coffee shop. The way Adrian looked at me when I walked in—the tone in his voice when he asked where I’d been. The tiny flickers of discomfort that would normally sit in my chest and grow teeth if I left them alone too long.
I send them before I can stop myself.
And he answers all of it. Always. No delay. No hesitation. Nowhy are you telling me this.
He’s always so calm about it, too. Like nothing I say is excessive. Like nothing I feel needs to be minimized or explained away. Like I’m not too much.
That part hits harder than it should.
Like I’ve been pulled out of something warm and familiar and dropped somewhere quieter. Colder.
I was only in Ravelle for a few days. In a place I’d never been. With a man I barely knew. And yet it feels like I’m coming down from him.
Not the place.
Not the experience.
Him.
The only thing I don’t mention is the two messages I’ve received.
An anonymous number, taunting me.
I thought the first one was just a wrong number.
But then I got another.
They’re both creepy, haunting. They sound eerily like my unhinged ex.
But that would be impossible. He’s in prison. I have a restraining order against him. There’s no way he’d be stupid enough to message me from in there, and risk extending his sentence.
I don’t want Soren to think I’m a problem. That I come with the baggage of a psycho ex who nearly killed me. He knows that he exists, of course, thanks to my complete breakdown on social media.
But he doesn’t need to think that he’s a continued presence in my life. And I’m not even certain it’s him. So I keep the messages, just in case.