James

The echo of the door slamming doesn’t just fade. It lingers, vibrating through the walls, the floor, all the way into my chest like an aftershock I can’t escape.

Then it’s quiet.

Not the kind of quiet that soothes. The kind that presses in from every angle, suffocating. Squeezing the hope out of you until all that’s left is darkness.

I drag a hand over my face, but it doesn’t help. The air here is too thin, too stale. Every breath feels shallow, like my lungs refuse to work. Like this place is shrinking around me inch by inch, the walls creeping closer until there’s nowhere left to stand. 

Right now, this place feels nothing like a safe house. More like a fucking cage. A trap I can’t fight my way out of.

Something tight coils in my gut, and suddenly it feels like if I stay still for another second, it’ll tear me apart from the inside out. So I start pacing. Back and forth, the way a caged animal does when it knows there’s no way out. The movement isn’t enough to settle me, but at least it keeps me from feeling idle. Because stillness… stillness feels too much like surrender.  

Yes. 

This is better.

Movement is action. Forward progress. Exactly what I need.

But then Zeb’s words come back to me, looping through my thoughts like a curse I can’t outrun. 

You’re losing her. One piece of her soft heart at a time… and you don’t even see it.

I grind the heels of my palms into my temples, like I can squeeze away his voice. Like I can scrape the memory clean. But now all I see is her face. Glassy eyes. That one silent tear. The look that confirmed I'd shattered her trust in me.  

By the time you’re ready to fix it… it might be too late.

A ragged breath shudders out of me. My throat feels raw, my chest hollowed out, and I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s too much. All of it. The shame. The regret. The gut-deep knowing that I don’t have a plan to fix this. I don’t even know where to start. 

My fists clench at my sides, itching to hit something. To split my knuckles open on the wall, anything to feel a clean kind of pain instead of this messy, gnawing ache I can’t shake off. 

But I force myself to keep moving, boots scuffing across the floorboards in rough, restless laps. Because if I stop… if I stop, I’ll have to face what I’ve done. 

Just wait until morning, until you’ve pulled yourself together. That’s what I tell myself, because like me, she needs time. Space. A chance to catch her breath. To process everything that’s happened without me hovering in the doorway, sucking the oxygen out of the room like I tend to do. A chance to steady herself before I go storming in and making everything worse. 

And maybe—maybe if I wait, she’ll be able to see past the way I treated her. Maybe she’ll remember who I was before tonight. Before I had to leave my brother, my home, every damn piece of my life behind. Maybe she’s up there thinking of that man instead of the angry monster who erupted out of me in my weakest moment.

But the thought of her up there, all alone, hurting because of me, makes my chest ache.

What if she’s sitting in that room right now, replaying every word I spat at her and taking it to heart? What if she blames herself? And worse, what if, after thinking about it, she decides she’s done? What if she finally realizes I’m not worth the risk? The pain?

A cold sweat breaks out across my forehead, my neck, my shoulders. My heart thuds so hard it feels like it’s trying to break free.

No.

I can’t wait.

I won’t.

I’d rather go up there and have her look me in the eye and tell me it’s over than spend one more fucking minute wondering if I’ve already lost her.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m moving. My boots pounding up the stairs two at a time, chasing the desperate hope that I’m not too late. 

I stop in front of her door, and suddenly I can’t make my hand move. My fist hovers in the air, a few inches from the wood. My pulse hammering so loud I wouldn’t be surprised if she can hear it from the other side.

What if she doesn’t open?

What if she’s standing there right now, holding her breath, wishing I’d just turn around and leave her alone for good?

The thought nearly buckles my knees, and for one split second, I almost do it. 

But I can’t. 

I can’t walk away. I can’t leave things like this.

So I force my knuckles to brush the door. A soft knock—so tentative it doesn’t even sound like me.

Silence. 

No answer.

Fuck.

I swallow hard, my throat raw. My fist curls tighter, bracing like it’s ready to punch through the door if that’s what it takes. This time, when I try again, I knock harder. 

“Annelly… please.” My voice scrapes out of me, ragged, ripped from that desperate, hopeless place at the bottom of my chest.

When all that greets me is more silence, something inside me breaks.

“I’m sorry,” I croak, my forehead dropping against the cold wood in a dull thud of defeat. “I’m so fucking sorry. I just—I need to see you, Annelly. I need to see that you’re okay.”

Still nothing. And every second that ticks by feels like I’m edging closer to an end I can’t crawl back from. And hell, without Tyler and now her, I’m not sure I’d even want to.

Then—so soft I almost think I imagined it—the sound of the lock shifting hits the air. 

I hold my breath. 

And when the door eases open, relief hits me so hard it nearly brings me to my knees.

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