Leah
At six-fifty-eight, I stood outside Jacob’s townhouse in the red dress and considered fleeing.
The dress was not scandalous.
That was the problem.
It was worse.
Soft red knit. Wrap front. Long sleeves. It skimmed instead of grabbed, tied at the waist, and made my hair look brighter and my skin look less like I had spent the last six weeks arguing with doctors and my own nervous system.
It also showed the faint edge of the scar near my shoulder when I moved.
I could have covered it.
I did not.
Jacob opened the door before I knocked.
For a second, he did not say anything.
His eyes moved over me once.
Not rudely.
Not like I was an object.
Like a man trying very hard to remember how to breathe through the sight of something he wanted.
I felt that look everywhere.
“You are
