Aria Pov
The words left Ethan’s mouth and the entire supermarket seemed to still for half a second.
Then the looking began.
Heads turned from every direction. A woman near the dairy section paused with a carton of milk halfway to her cart. Two teenagers by the snack aisle stopped mid-conversation and openly stared. A cashier leaned slightly over her register, eyes wide. Even the soft background music suddenly felt too loud, every note sharper against the new silence. Ethan stood in the middle of it all with the red mark of my slap still clear on his cheek, eyes locked on me as if the rest of the store did not exist. Derek remained a few steps behind him, expression carefully blank, but the damage had already been done.
I was the one who had been supposed to expose him.
I had walked f
