Deep breaths, Ivy.
You can leave again. You can change your mind.
Nothing about this has to be permanent.
Nothing is irreversible.
I repeat it to myself until it almost sounds true.
Almost.
Because somewhere underneath that—quieter, but stronger—there’s another thought. One I don’t say out loud. One I don’t fully let myself touch.
That this isn’t just a visit. That this isn’t temporary.
That I’m not just going back to Ravelle for a weekend.
I’m going back to him.
CHAPTER 28
SOREN
Adrian has a death wish.
I don’t mean that metaphorically.
I mean it in the way a man moves when he doesn’t understand the consequences of his own behavior. The way he opens his mouth, the way he carries himself.
He’s a problem in the most literal sense—an obstruction that continues to exist because no one has removed it yet.
Men like him don’t require deep analysis. They reveal themselves through repetition—same patterns, same mistakes, same quiet insistence that they deserve more than they’ve earned.
I watch him like something that doesn’t understand where it stands in the hierarchy. The way he speaks to her. The way he positions himself in her space. The casual entitlement threaded through every interaction, as if proximity has given him permission to define the terms of her life.
It hasn’t.
He just hasn’t been corrected.
And the longer I watch him, the more convinced I am that he simply doesn’t know that yet.
I’m getting tired of watching him treat my beautiful little stray the way he does.
There’s a particular kind of man who mistakes proximity for ownership. Who thinks that because he offered shelter—temporary, conditional, self-serving shelter—that he’s somehow elevated himself.
That he looks like the good guy.
That anyone with eyes would look at the situation and thinkhe saved her.
The level of delusion is almost impressive.
He isn’t necessary.
He’s convenient. That’s all.
I’ve been skeptical of him from the start. Not because of anything she says. But because of everything she doesn’t.
The hesitations.