Page 131 of Scars and Crowns

He turns. Just slightly. Someone beside him says something, and he laughs. And I see his face. Everything inside me stops.

No.

The word never makes it past my lips. It simply appears somewhere inside my head, loud and desperate.

No.

It can't be.

But it is.

Seven years haven't changed him enough.

There are a few more lines around his eyes now. His hair is longer. His face is older, dressed in an expensive suit that makes him look like every other wealthy man in this room.

But I know that face. I know it so well that my stomach twists before I can tell myself not to react.

The room disappears.

The music becomes a dull vibration somewhere very far away. Voices blur together until they are nothing more than meaningless noise. The chandeliers above us seem unbearably bright, and suddenly I am aware of the fabric against my skin, the weight of my earrings, the pressure of Yuvaan's fingers around mine.

Everything is too much. Everything except him.

That face.

That face I have spent seven years trying to bury so deeply that sometimes I've convinced myself I imagined parts of that night.

My lungs refuse to work properly. I inhale. Nothing. Again. My chest tightens harder. I am back there. Not here. Not in this ballroom. Not beside Yuvaan. Somewhere else. Somewhere I never want to be again.

My fingers start shaking.

Yuvaan turns toward me. "Anamika?" I hear his voice, but it feels distant. His expression changes almost immediately.

The warmth disappears from his face, replaced by something alert and intensely focused. His eyes move over mine, searching for an explanation I can't give him, and then follow the direction of my stare.

He looks across the room. Then back at me. “What's wrong?"

I try to speak. Nothing comes. My throat feels closed. I swallow once, painfully. "Please." The word barely exists.

His hand tightens around mine. "Anamika."

"Please, let's go." My voice breaks. "I can't."

He doesn't ask why. He doesn't ask who I'm looking at. He doesn't tell me I'm safe or demand that I explain myself or try to make sense of whatever is happening inside my head. He simply moves. His arm comes around my waist, firm and immediate, and he turns my body away from the ballroom. "All right." That's it. No questions. Just that. All right.

He guides me toward the exit, keeping himself between me and the room. His hand stays at my waist, steady enough that I can lean into him without having to think about it.

I barely register the people we pass. Someone says his name. Someone else starts to ask where we're going. He doesn't stop. He doesn't slow down.

"Excuse us." His voice is calm, but there's something underneath it that makes people move.

I keep my eyes on the floor. One step. Then another. I can hear my own breathing, too fast and too shallow.

"Look at me, Daisy." I can't.

"That's all right. Just keep breathing." My fingers curl tighter around his. "You're with me." The words reach me somewhere through the fog.

You're with me.