CHAPTER 22_ Collateral damage
Mara didn’t knock. She never did when she was already angry. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, still wearing last night’s makeup like a bruise I hadn’t bothered to clean, when the door opened and the room shifted. Not loudly. Not violently. Just enough for my body to know something had entered that didn’t belong to me. She closed the door behind her. I didn’t look up. “You don’t get to do that,” she said. Her voice wasn’t raised. That was the worst part. It was controlled, careful, like she’d rehearsed this in her head until every sharp edge had been sanded down into something precise. “Do what,” I asked, even though my chest had already started tightening. “Pretend you don’t know what you’re doing.” I finally lifted my head. Mara stood with her arms crossed, eyes steady, jaw
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