CHAPTER 20
BEA
Icould still feel him.
Pressed into my skin like something that hadn’t decided to leave yet.
My hand was on the door handle longer than it should’ve been—fingers curled too tight, pulse still uneven, breath not quite matching the quiet around us. I was aware of everything at once and nothing in the way that mattered.
The hallway was gone.
The noise was gone.
But it hadn’t left me.
It was still there—under my ribs, low in my stomach, threaded through my muscles in a way that made standing still feel like a decision I wasn’t fully in control of.
I let go of the handle.
That was the first mistake.
Because the second I did, the awareness snapped wider—everything in me catching up all at once.
Him.
Behind me.
Close enough that I didn’t need to turn to know exactlywhere he was. Close enough that my body adjusted to it automatically, a subtle shift I didn’t give permission for and couldn’t undo once it happened.
For a second—one, suspended, dangerous moment—I just stood there, letting it exist. Letting the space between us sit exactly as it was.
Too close. Too aware. Too easy. Because that was the truth of it.
It would take nothing. Not effort. Not persuasion. Not another word.
Nothing but turning around. Nothing but letting my body do what it already knew how to do with his.
My fingers flexed at my sides, a reflex I didn’t trust, my breath catching just enough to give me away if he was paying attention.
My gaze dragged up, meeting his.
And that was it. That was the point where my resolved started to slip.
Where the room tipped. Where logic was lost. Where control slipped just enough to become irrelevant.
I stepped back—quick, sharp, decisive in a way that felt more like damage control than choice, air pulling hard into my lungs like I’d been underwater longer than I realized. “I need to change.”
I didn’t give him the chance to answer, to step closer, to say anything that would undo what little distance I’d just forced between us.
I turned. Every step deliberate, in a way that felt almost performative until I hit the bathroom and shut the door behind me with a sharp thud.
Then the dress shifted. The top slipped, the damaged fabric giving under its own weight, dragging my attention down with it in a sharp, unavoidable pull. My hands came upautomatically, fingers clumsy as I tried to catch it, to fix it, to make it sit right again like I hadn’t just—my breath stuttered.
I shimmed out of the dress, crumpled it into a wad and cracked the door. The fabric flowed from my hand onto the floor of my bedroom.
Closing myself back into the small space, the lock slid into place with an easy click.
For a second, I just stood there.