He didn’t argue. He simply captured me. What followed was not gentle bargaining but a reclamation: fierce, precise, leaving little doubt. He moved me to the kitchen counter, brushed a hand along the line of my neck, and each touch mapped me again as his. The intensity of it lit up the exposed places inside me that Angel’s casual familiarity had left aglow.
We fell together into the small silence that is left after an explosive argument and its savage answer. He held me like he was keeping a fragile thing from falling apart. I clung to him because sometimes only the weight of him could reassemble me.
Later that night, when the house was finally quiet, I crept past Angel’s door. She was awake; the light under her door was a thin strip. For a wild, childish impulse, I pushed the door open a
