Break Me To Love You

Chapter #4 {You’re not broken}

I don't sleep that night.

Instead, I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment in the library. The way Zeke's voice cracked when he said he'd been trying to be someone his father would be proud of. The vulnerability in his eyes. The way my traitorous heart had stuttered when he looked at me.

I hate it. I hate that seven years of therapy, seven years of building walls and learning to protect myself, might be crumbling because of one conversation.

By morning, I've convinced myself it was a moment of weakness. Nothing more.

But then I walk into school and see him leaning against my locker.

"What are you doing?" I ask, stopping a few feet away.

"Waiting for you." He holds up a coffee cup from the local café downtown. "Peace offering. It's a vanilla latte. I remember-" He stops himself, jaw tightening. "I asked Amara what you liked."

The fact that he stopped himself from saying "I remember" does something strange to my chest. Because he does remember. After all these years, he remembers.

I should walk away. I should tell him to leave me alone.

Instead, I take the coffee.

"This doesn't change anything," I say.

"I know." But there's something in his eyes, hope, maybe, or relief, that makes my stomach flip.

I open my locker, hyperaware of him standing so close. He smells like cedar and something clean, like laundry detergent or soap. It's distracting in a way that makes me angry at myself.

"People are staring," I mutter.

"Let them."

"Easy for you to say. You're Ezekiel Weston. I'm the girl who disappeared for seven years and came back broken."

"You're not broken." His voice is fierce, sudden. "Don't ever say that about yourself."

I turn to look at him, and the intensity in his gaze steals my breath. We're close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes, close enough that if I leaned forward just a few inches..

I step back, slamming my locker shut.

"I have to get to class."

"Dakota, wait." He catches my wrist, gentle but firm. The touch sends heat racing up my arm. "Come to the game Friday night."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because I want you there." His thumb brushes against my pulse point, and I know he can feel how fast my heart is racing. "Because maybe you want to be there too, even if you won't admit it."

I pull my hand away, but the warmth of his touch lingers.

"I'll think about it," I hear myself say.

His smile is slow, devastating. "That's all I'm asking."

As I walk away, I can feel him watching me again. And I realize with growing dread that I'm already planning what to wear on Friday.

I'm so screwed.

The rest of the week passes in a haze of hyperawareness. Every time I turn a corner, I'm bracing myself to see him. Every time I hear that low laugh in the hallway, my pulse kicks up. It's exhausting, this constant state of alert, like my body has forgotten how to exist without tracking his presence.

Wednesday in AP Lit, Ms. Chen has us workshop our thesis statements in pairs. Of course, Zeke slides his desk closer to mine, the metal legs scraping against the floor in a way that makes my teeth clench.

"So," he says, leaning back in his chair with that infuriating ease. "Heathcliff. Monster or misunderstood?"

"Both," I say without looking up from my notes. "People aren't one thing or another."

"Agreed." He taps his pen against his notebook. "But which one matters more? What he became, or why he became it?"

I finally meet his eyes. "Does the why excuse the what?"

"No." His gaze doesn't waver. "But maybe it explains it. Maybe it makes it... human."

There's something in the way he says it, something that feels less like we're talking about Heathcliff and more like we're talking about us. About him. About that day seven years ago and everything that came after.

"Being human doesn't absolve us of the damage we cause," I say quietly.

"No," he agrees. "But maybe it means we're capable of being more than our worst moments."

Ms. Chen calls time before I can respond, but Zeke's words echo in my head for the rest of the day.

By Thursday, Amara has definitely noticed something.

"Okay, spill," she says at lunch, stealing a fry from my tray. "What's going on with you and Zeke Weston?"

"Nothing."

"Girl, please. I've seen the way he looks at you. Like you're the only person in the room." She leans forward, eyes bright with curiosity. "And don't think I didn't notice you actually showed up to work on your project. You hate group work."

"It's a required assignment."

"Uh-huh. And the coffee he brought you Monday? Also required?"

I stab at my salad, not meeting her eyes. "He's just... we have history. That's all."

"What kind of history?"

The kind that still wakes me up at 3 AM sometimes, heart racing, skin clammy with sweat. The kind that made me change schools, change states, change everything about who I was.

"The complicated kind," I finally say.

Amara studies me for a long moment, then nods. "Okay. But for what it's worth? Whatever happened before, he looks at you like you hung the moon. Just... be careful, yeah?"

"I'm always careful."

"That's what worries me," she says softly.

Friday arrives too quickly and not quickly enough. I tell myself all day that I'm not going to the game. I have homework. I have a new book I want to start. I have literally anything else I could be doing.

But when the final bell rings, I find myself walking to my car with my stomach in knots, already knowing I'm going to go. Already knowing that some part of me- the part I've been trying so hard to suppress- wants to see him out there under the lights.

Wants to see if he'll look for me in the stands.

Wants to know what it means that he asked me to come.

I sit in my car in the parking lot, hands gripping the steering wheel, and make myself breathe. Four counts in, hold for four, four counts out.

My phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number: *I'm wearing 7. Look for me.*

My heart does something complicated in my chest.

I should go home. I should delete the number. I should do anything except what I'm about to do.

Instead, I start the car and drive toward the football field, toward the lights and the noise and Ezekiel Weston, who somehow still has the power to make me forget every promise I've made to myself about staying away.