I pressed both hands to my face.
I flinched away from Cameron. And Cameron’s face….
The truth settled like lead in my stomach.
I have to stop living in the past.
But trauma wasn’t a door I could close—it was a crack that kept widening every time I felt something real.
Then I straightened.I should go back out there. Except I couldn’t, not yet, not like this.For fuck’s sake, I’m shaking like a leaf. My nerves were raw.
And Luka’s poisonous voice was still whispering in the back of my skull.
I knew, balls to bones, that this wouldn’t be the last time Cameron would touch me gently and accidentally break something buried deep.
What happens the next time?
I wasn’t sure if I would hold myself together or fall apart completely in Cameron’s hands.
Cameron
I stared at Theo’s bedroom door.
What the hell just happened?
Music felt so wrong in the quiet, and I hit pause. I pressed my palm over my sternum, trying to steady the thudding there. My hand still tingled from where it had rested on Theo’s shoulder. It had been nothing but a gentle touch, warm and friendly. I’d done it a dozen times with friends, classmates, even strangers during introductions.
Theo had reacted as though he’d been burned.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but the image wouldn’t stop replaying: Theo jolting back, his eyes wide and unfocused, his breath stuttering, Theo stepping away from me as if he needed space to breathe.
Worst of all was the way Theo flinched, a real, physical recoil.
I hadn’t meant to scare him or cross a line. I’d simply touched him because it felt natural. Because I wanted to be close in that small, harmless way.
Theo wasn’t harmless.
Theo was composed on the outside and chaos underneath. Anyone could see it in the way he held himself, too precise, too aware of every inch of space around him.
I sat on the edge of the sofa, my elbows on my knees, confused as fuck.
Theo’s reaction hadn’t looked like “don’t touch me, I’m not interested.”
It had looked like fear, hurt…
A solid weight formed in my chest. Theo’s reaction stung more than I wanted to admit. It made my skin feel too tight, as though I’d messed something up without knowing how.
But it also told me something else.
Theo wasn’t cold. He wasn’t distant by choice.
Something happened to him.
Something old, heavy, painful.
I drew in a slow breath. I knew what it was like to hide parts of yourself behind walls. I’d done it with my family for years.Theo had walls too, but I got the feeling they didn’t just protect him—they trapped him.
I won’t push him again.Not physically, not in any way that would make him retreat. But I wasn’t going to back away, either.