**Ella’s POV**
Bethel was lying.
I knew it the moment she said *I’m fine*. The words were smooth, practiced, but her eyes betrayed her. They were too bright, too alive, like someone who’d just stepped out of a storm and into sunlight they hadn’t known existed. It wasn’t the look of a girl who was safe. It was the look of a girl who’d been set on fire and was still deciding whether to burn or be reborn.
I didn’t push in the hallway. Not then. Some truths needed space to breathe before they could be spoken. But as we walked to her apartment, my mind raced through every possibility. A new boyfriend? Unlikely. Bethel had sworn off dating after everything with Donald. This was something else. Something that had rewritten her from the inside out.
Her apartment was quiet when we arrived, the
