While he talked to my mom like he belonged in her space.
My fingers dug into the page hard enough to crease it, paper buckling under my grip before I even registered what I was doing.
A rush of cold slid through me from the inside out, settling low and heavy, like someone had dropped a brick straight into my gut. It didn’t move. It just sat there, dense and unyielding, dragging everything else down with it.
I tried to pull my eyes away.
I couldn’t even blink.
They stayed fixed on him, locked in place while my brain scrambled, grabbing at details, forcing them to line up.
The more I stared at him, the more everything else started to fall away.
The age difference didn’t matter.
The missing mustache didn’t matter.
Time hadn’t changed the way he looked at people.
“Wh—who is that?” I heard myself ask, but my voice sounded wrong even to my own ears.
“William Kellerman. P.E. He resigned after the fire.”
Henry’s voice touched my ears, but I wasn’t sure I was hearing him.
Not really.
Air wouldn’t sit right in my lungs. My chest pulled too far open, stretching past the point it was meant to.
“No. That’s—” I pressed my finger into the page until it hurt. “That’s Otto.”
Henry moved fast enough that I felt it first. One hand braced my jaw, the other steady at the back of my neck.
He wasright there, but he wasn't close enough.
There was a layer between us I couldn’t push through, a thin, buzzing static under my skin that made his touch feel distant, dulled out by the panic clawing its way up my throat.
A small, broken sound slipped out of me.
His thumb dragged lightly along my jaw, nails catching just enough to sting—just enough to pull me back into my body.
“Baby,” he beckoned. “Look at me.”
I tried.
My eyes dragged to his, but they kept slipping, wanting to go back, to check again, to make sure I wasn’t…
“Henry,” I choked. “Th—that’s Otto. I know it is. That’s him. That’s?—”
“Breathe, Rabbit.”
“I am.”
“You’re not,” he cut in, his thumb pressing harder under my jaw, grounding. “Try again.”
I turned my head on instinct, trying to drag in a breath like he told me to.
Right.