I don’t remember how I got home.
One moment I was standing in the hallway outside Jason’s door, the echo of his voice still sharp in my ears. You’ve started something you can’t finish, and the next, I was staring at my apartment door with trembling hands, my keys refusing to fit into the lock. My chest felt tight, my breath uneven, as though I had run miles I couldn’t recall.
When the door finally opened, the silence swallowed me whole. The faint hum of the refrigerator, the tick of the wall clock, the soft city noise seeping through the windows, all of it sounded distant, like I was underwater.
I took a step inside, shut the door, and leaned against it. My jacket slid off my shoulders and dropped to the floor. The moment it touched the ground, something inside me cracked.
I’d held it
