I make it three steps toward the door before I stop.
My hand is on the doorknob, my escape route right there, but my feet won't move. Because leaving feels wrong. Running feels like giving up, like letting fear win again.
And I'm so tired of being afraid.
I turn around.
Zeke is standing exactly where I left him, hands shoved in his pockets, looking at me like he's memorizing my face. Like he thinks this might be the last time.
"I don't want to leave," I hear myself say.
Something flickers in his eyes, hope, maybe, or disbelief. "You don't have to."
"I don't know what I'm doing." My voice cracks. "I don't know if this is healing or self-destruction or-"
"Kota." He takes a step toward me, just one. "We don't have to figure it all out right now."
But I'm already moving, closing the d
