I didn’t expect him to pull away when I reached for him. I should have. But I didn’t.
He flinched. Just a little. A sharp, subtle movement that didn’t escape me.
It was the way his body stiffened under my touch, the way his breath caught, that made everything inside me go still. I could feel the tension in his muscles, the way he pulled back just enough to put distance between us, without saying a word. He was standing so close, and yet, I felt a mile away.
We had been here before—on the edge, teetering between the person I thought I knew and the person he was becoming. But this was different. I could feel it in the air, thick like smoke. Something was wrong. Something was eating at him from the inside out.
I tried to ignore it. I tried to tell myself it was just the weight of everythi
