Adrian POV
I see the bruise on a Wednesday morning and I almost walk past it.
Jules is coming out of the campus health building as I'm going in, head down, bag strap across her chest, moving fast the way she always does now — like standing still somewhere public costs her something. She doesn't see me. I'm two steps to her left and she's already past me before I register what I just saw.
The inside of her wrist. Four finger-shaped marks, dark against pale skin, sitting exactly where someone's hand would land if they grabbed and held.
I stop on the steps and turn around and she's already twenty feet away, and I stand there and watch her go and feel something move through me that is not guilt and not sadness and not any of the complicated things I've been carrying for weeks.
This is sim
