Page 68 of None Of Your Business

“The room spun,” I whisper, my chest heaving.

“You’re still getting dizzy?”

“Only when I stand too fast.”

He doesn’t move his hand from my neck. He simply holds me there, the proximity no longer an accident, but a choice. “Can you stand on your own?”

“Yeah,” I breathe, though my legs feel like lead.

Slowly, his hands fall away, leaving a ghost of heat where his palms had been. I lean back against the desk for support, clutching my sketchbook against my chest.

“Gemma is opening up more.” My voice is raspy as I scramble to throw a wedge of distance between us. “Did you notice?”

“I noticed.” He clears his throat and steps back toward the door, though his eyes haven’t lost that intense, lingering burn. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

We walk side by side toward the exit.

He glances down at the sketchbook under my arm and nudges me. “So, are you going to sign it for me later?”

I try to stop it, I really do, but a smile takes over my face.

“Fuck off, Hudson.”

Twenty

Hudson

“Ethan.”

I call his name, but nothing comes back. I say it again, louder this time—the way I did that night, standing in the doorway with my hand on the frame, certain that if I just said it the right way, he’d answer.

He doesn’t answer. He never answers.

My mother’s scream arrives before I see her, tearing through the hallway from somewhere behind me even though she wasn’t there yet. The order gets scrambled every time. That’s how I know it’s not real.

I’m moving toward him and not moving at all.

Say something. Say anything. I’ll fix it. Just talk to me.

He doesn’t.

I jolt upright, breathing hard, sheets damp and twisted around one leg. The clock on the nightstand reads 4:02 a.m.

Today is the day.

I’ve felt it for weeks. My body keeps better track of the calendar than I do. It always has.

I sit on the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands until my heart stops trying to climb out of my chest. Then I get up, because lying there is worse.

I go straight to the second bedroom. I converted it into a gym the week I moved in because I knew I’d need it more than another guest room. I wrap my hands without sitting down, not bothering with music. This morning I want to hear my own breathing.

I hit the bag first. The leather stings through the wraps, but I don’t stop.

I saw it. I saw it happening, and I didn’t make him talk.

I throw another combination.

Twenty-five years old. Two years younger than I was. I knew something was wrong two weeks before, but I told myself I’d bring it up when there was more time, when it wasn’t awkward, when—