Me: Don’t contact me again.
My hands start shaking for real now, and I curl my fingers into the fabric of the couch to steady them. This isn’t vague. This isn’t fishing. This is someone who knows my history and wants me to know they know it.
Unknown: You should’ve stayed gone.
You should’ve learned the lesson.
My breath catches on that last line, because suddenly this isn’t just about fear, it’s about blame. About punishment. About someone rewriting my survival as failure.
Me: What do you want?
The pause this time is longer, and it’s worse for it. I imagine someone on the other end smiling, considering how much to reveal.
Unknown: I want you to remember who you really are.
And I want you to understand that men like him don’t save girls like you.
Cold spreads through my chest that has nothing to do with temperature. I glance toward the door, then the windows, then back to the phone, every sense suddenly alert. My screen goes dark.
No typing dots. No follow-up. I sit there for a long moment, phone clenched in my hand, heart pounding hard enough that it feels like it might bruise my ribs from the inside. Every instinct screams at once now. Run. Hide. Tell someone. Tell him. Don’t tell him.
Ethan’s name floats to the surface of my thoughts, heavy and complicated, and for the first time since I met him, I don’t know whether reaching for him would make me safer or pull me deeper into something I can’t control.
I look down at my phone again, at the empty screen, and realize with a sick clarity that whoever this is didn’t text by accident.
They wanted me unsettled.
They wanted me doubting.
And they know exactly where to find me.
I draw my knees to my chest, the city noise muffled beyond the walls, and one question loops through my mind with brutal persistence.
Do I tell him or do I disappear before someone decides for me?
12
ETHAN
By the time I get to the office after a series of offsite meetings, I already know something’s off. I don’t know how yet, but the certainty is there, solid and irritatingly precise. I spot Lila through the glass wall before she notices me, and the read is immediate. She’s working fast, she’s working clean, and she’s stripped all warmth out of her movements like it’s excess weight she doesn’t want to carry.
That’s new.
Lila’s efficient on her worst days and prolific on her best ones, but she’s also expressive in a way that’s subtle enough to miss if you don’t pay attention. Today, there’s none of that. There’s no brightness under the surface, no spark of commentary in the way she’s scanning the document. She’s not singing under her breath, her eyes look dead, and at best she’s contained, but not in a good way.
I don’t stop at her desk. I let that be my first test. From my office, I watch her through the glass, and I take inventory like I always do. She doesn’t fidget. She doesn’t glance my way. She doesn’tsoften when she speaks to anyone else. She’s running on control, which tells me something got under her skin hard enough to make her pull everything inward.
I give it a few minutes, then I call her in.
She arrives prepared, tablet tucked under her arm, posture straight, expression neutral enough to be almost impersonal. It’s a good look on her. It just isn’t her.
She sits across from me without waiting to be told, and we get into work without ceremony. She’s working with the kind of efficiency that points to a professional who’s uninterested in anything that doesn’t directly serve the task at hand. If this were any other employee, I’d call it professionalism and move on.
With her, it feels like a wall.
When she finishes the last update, she waits. Hands folded. Eyes steady. No tell.
“You haven’t been responding to my messages,” I say, keeping my voice even.