Chapter 5

Ryan jerked back as though I had burned him.

His eyes locked on mine.

“What did you say?”

My mouth had not moved.

I could barely draw air into my lungs. Each breath scraped against my ribs, shallow and useless. Somewhere above us, Chloe was speaking too quickly to emergency services, but Ryan did not seem to hear her.

For seven years, his thoughts had belonged to me.

Now, for the first time, mine had reached him.

*You ruined every place I ever called home.*

Ryan flinched.

“No.”

Chloe crouched behind him. “She didn’t say anything.”

He ignored her.

*You let her wear my life like one of your jerseys.*

His lips parted.

“Emma, stop.”

I almost laughed. Even now, his first instinct was to command me.

He leaned closer, his face stripped of every expression the cameras knew. There was no charming grin, no practiced arrogance, no cool detachment after a loss. Only fear.

“You can hear me,” he whispered. “You know what I really feel.”

His thoughts flooded me, frantic and bright.

*I love you.*

*I have always loved you.*

*Chloe meant nothing.*

That final thought carried its own betrayal.

Not innocence.

Admission.

He had slept with her. He had known it would hurt me. He had done it because he wanted my pain to prove I still belonged to him.

Images moved through my mind faster than I could stop them: the apartment code changed to Chloe’s birthday, my boxes collapsing in the rain, my degree beneath a greasy takeout container, the empty velvet case where my grandmother’s watch should have been.

Ryan heard every image as if I had spoken it aloud.

His face changed with each one.

“I can explain.”

*You have been explaining for seven years.*

He recoiled again.

Chloe stared at him. “Ryan, what is going on?”

He looked at her then, and whatever she saw made her fall silent.

Sirens rose somewhere below the building.

I tried to move my hand. Pain flashed from my shoulder to my spine.

Ryan reached for me.

I thought of all the times those hands had pulled me close after his words pushed me away. All the times I had mistaken tenderness after cruelty for proof that the cruelty had not mattered.

*Don’t touch me.*

His hand stopped in midair.

That was when I knew for certain.

He could hear everything.

Not the version of me who had kept forgiving him.

Not the woman who crossed airports, missed sleep, and swallowed humiliation because a secret voice insisted he loved her.

He could hear the woman he had finally created.