The Way He Looks at Me
1097 Words
The day began quietly enough. Sunlight spilled through the high windows, touching the corners of the old house where dust had gathered like secrets. But underneath the calm, the air between Maya and Ethan felt stretched thin a silence waiting to snap.
She sat at the kitchen counter, scrolling through her phone, half dressed for a world she hadn’t seen in weeks. A denim jacket over a short dress. Boots. A spark of rebellion disguised as morning routine.
Ethan’s voice broke the silence. “Where are you going?”
“Out.” She didn’t look up.
“Out where?”
Maya slipped her phone into her bag. “I don’t need your permission, Ethan.”
He set his coffee cup down hard enough that it cracked against the saucer. “That’s not what I asked.”
She turned then, meeting his gaze that calm, commanding look that had haunted her dreams. “You said there were rules. I didn’t agree to them.”
His jaw tightened. “You live under this roof. You will follow them.”
“And if I don’t?”
His silence was answer enough.
Maya’s pulse raced, half fear, half defiance. “You can’t control me forever. I’m not a child, Ethan.”
“No,” he said, voice low. “But you keep acting like one.”
The words hit her harder than she expected. “Excuse me?”
He stood slowly, pushing his chair back. “Your father would have wanted you safe, not out chasing distractions that only end in trouble.”
Something inside her broke at that. “Don’t you dare use him like that.”
Ethan exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face. “Then tell me what I’m supposed to do, Maya. Watch you fall apart? Pretend I don’t care?”
“You don’t get to care!” she snapped. “You’re not him. You’re not family. You’re just”
Her voice faltered. She didn’t finish, because the look on his face stopped her cold.
“Just what?” he asked quietly.
Her throat worked. “Just someone who doesn’t know when to let go.”
For a long moment, neither spoke. The tension crackled between them sharp, intimate, unbearable.
Ethan took a step closer. “You think I like this?” he said. “You think I want to be the one keeping you here, watching you test me every day?”
“Then why do it?”
“Because I gave my word!” His voice cracked for the first time. “And because”
He stopped.
“Because what?” she pressed, eyes searching his face.
His hand flexed at his side. “Because if I stop, I don’t know what line I’ll cross next.”
The confession landed between them like thunder.
Maya’s breath came shallow. She could feel every inch of distance shrinking the sound of his heartbeat matching hers, the way his eyes softened and darkened all at once.
“Ethan,” she whispered. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me like that.”
He froze. “Like what?”
“Like I’m something you shouldn’t want.”
He closed his eyes briefly, as if that could undo the truth in her words. “Maybe I shouldn’t look at you at all.”
“Then stop.”
But he didn’t.
He took another step forward, until the air between them pulsed. She could smell the faint trace of his cologne, feel the heat radiating from him. Every nerve in her body screamed danger and don’t move all at once.
“This isn’t right,” he said finally, voice raw.
“Then stop making it feel like it is.”
The words tore out of her before she could stop them.
Something shifted in him the calm façade cracked. He looked at her the way storms look at the sea, inevitable and consuming.
“Maya…”
Her name was half warning, half plea.
She took a step back, but her voice didn’t shake. “You can’t keep hiding behind rules and promises. You’re not protecting me, Ethan. You’re protecting yourself.”
He flinched. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, I do.” Her voice rose, trembling now. “Every time you tell me what to do, every time you say my father wanted this it’s not about him. It’s about you not trusting yourself with me.”
“Stop.”
“I see the way you look at me.”
He turned away, but she followed. “Say it. You think I’m too young, too naïve, too broken but you look at me like I’m the only thing keeping you breathing.”
His hand slammed against the counter not at her, but near enough that the sound made her flinch.
“I said stop!”
Her breath hitched, tears stinging her eyes. “You’re proving my point.”
The fight drained out of him in a rush. He pressed his palms to the marble, shoulders tense, head bowed. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Maya. That’s the last thing I ever want.”
“Then stop treating me like a child.”
He lifted his head. Their eyes met. The silence stretched long, fragile, and dangerous.
Ethan’s throat moved. “If I stop treating you like one,” he said softly, “I don’t know what I’ll start treating you like instead.”
Her heart stopped.
For a heartbeat, they were close enough that one wrong breath could change everything.
Then he stepped back abrupt, sharp as if distance was the only thing keeping him sane.
“This conversation is over,” he said quietly.
She swallowed hard. “You can’t just walk away every time you feel something.”
“I have to.”
He reached for his jacket, his hands shaking slightly.
“Where are you going?”
“Anywhere but here.”
He didn’t look back as he walked out but the way the door closed, soft and deliberate, said everything he couldn’t.
Maya stood there, the sound echoing through the empty room, and realized for the first time just how dangerous feelings could be.
She wasn’t sure who was more broken now the man who left, or the girl who made him lose control.
Ethan walks out, shaken and breathless, leaving Maya alone with the echo of everything they both refused to admit and the promise that when he returns, nothing between them will be the same.
- Writer
