KAIREN
I heard him.
His voice was a low, muffled rumble through the thick wood of my door. "I have to go. I'll be back in a few weeks."
I was curled on my side, facing the door, my eyes wide open in the dark. I hadn't slept. I'd just lain there, cycling through fury, hurt, and a crushing, humiliating sense of loss.
Every part of me screamed to get up, to yank the door open, to kiss him hard enough to bruise both of us, and then slam it in his face for good measure. A dramatic, satisfying end.
My body refused to obey me. I stayed frozen, curled on my side, my eyes fixed on the thin, pale line of light leaking from beneath the door. It stretched across the floor like a fault line, a fragile border between everything I wanted to do and everything I couldn't. I listened—held my breath, really—for something to follow his words. A pause. A sigh. The scrape of his knuckles against the wood. Anything that would mean he was still there, still undecided.
Nothing came.
