Off-Limits

I was nineteen the first time I really noticed Jake Morrison. Not just the way he looked, but the way he looked at me, like maybe I wasn’t just Ryan’s little sister anymore.

We were never meant to be anything but awkward hellos and half-remembered summers. He was supposed to be temporary, someone passing through, someone safe to forget. But there was nothing temporary about the way he lingered in my thoughts, or the weight of everything we didn’t say.
Jake was a contradiction. Protective but distant. Charming but closed off. For years, he kept his promise to my brother and stayed away. I tried to move on, told myself he never mattered. That it was just a crush, not something I’d keep replaying in my mind like a favorite scene I couldn’t quit.
But now we’re back under the same roof. Two weeks. That’s all it’s supposed to be.
Only… something’s different.
The tension that used to simmer quietly now threatens to burn through every wall I’ve built. The silences speak louder. The looks last longer. And the feelings I thought I buried? They’ve never really left.
I should know better than to let him in again. He already walked away once, and I still remember how that felt. But when he says my name like it means something—like I mean the world to him—I start to wonder if he’s the only one who ever truly sees me.

Jake Morrison is still off-limits. I just don’t know how much longer I can pretend to care.