NATALIE
I was already honking at the gate before I could think better of it. My hand hit the steering wheel like it owed me answers. Like it could somehow undo the last three nights of silence—the unanswered texts, the blue ticks that mocked me, the voice notes he left at 2 a.m. that I’d played until I memorized the pauses between his breaths.
"I just want you to believe me, Nat. I never meant to hurt you."
I hated how even now, his voice lingered in my head like perfume on an old shirt. I hated how it still made my throat tighten.
A guard stepped forward, posture rigid with that puffed-up energy security guards loved to wear like armor.
“You can’t just show up here,” he said, arms already raised in warning.
I rolled down the window, hoodie up, no makeup, hair pulled into the kind o
