CHASE
**Three days later**
Good.
We’re not speaking.
Makes everything cleaner.
No more hallway standoffs. No bathroom ambushes. No kitchen collisions. I can pretend she doesn’t exist—even though she’s literally sleeping ten feet away through a thin wall and we share the same goddamn sink.
Except pretending isn’t working.
Every time I walk past her closed door, I hear the faint click of her keyboard. Every time I grab coffee from the kitchen, her empty mug is still in the sink—lipstick print on the rim even though she swears she doesn’t wear any. Every time I lie in bed at night staring at the ceiling, I replay the bonfire: the way her voice cracked when she talked about her mom, the way my smirk felt like acid in my mouth the second it left my lips, the way she walked away wit
