Jaxx’s Point Of View Her words dropped like a blade across my chest. “You can keep the panties.” She didn’t look at me. Didn’t even give me the mercy of a backward glance. Just that rigid spine, trembling beneath pride that barely held her together. And then she was gone, heels striking the tiled floor, the sound echoing down the hallway like war drums. I stood frozen, the silence she left behind pressing in on me, heavy, suffocating. My knuckles itched with the need to slam the wall, to drag her back, to pin her against the door and force her to admit what was burning in those eyes before she looked away. But I didn’t move. Because I saw it. The way her legs faltered, just barely, as if the ground threatened to give out beneath her. How her hands curled into fists at her sides, how

