Page 34 of Rhys: and the girl who was always his

There’s a second—just one—where she leans into me.

Then, her spine straightens, and the mask slides back into place.

“I had it,” she mutters.

“Stop it, Ally.” My voice is low and controlled, but the storm underneath is anything but.

Because I’m scared.

And I don’t do scared.

She clutches the bag like it’s some kind of shield like chips are going to save her from this conversation.

“Stopwhat, Rhys?” she fires back, already on the defence. “Breathing? Existing? Being slightly hungry?”

There it is. That bite in her voice. The one she uses when she’s trying to deflect. To make me the villain in a fight she picked with herself.

“Pretending you’re fine,” I say. “When you’re not.”

Her eyes flash, but there’s something behind it. Something haunted.

“Iamfine.”

I laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because it’s so far from the truth, it feels like a bad joke. “You passed out.”

Her expression shifts. The faintest flicker of something real.

Fear.

Or maybe the memory of it.

“That happened once, and it was days ago,” she says, brushing it off like we both imagined it.

“No, it didn’t,” I push. “You’ve been dizzy for weeks. You’re barely eating. You zone out in the middle of conversations. I’m not an idiot, Ally.”

She shrugs. “I didn’t ask you to play doctor.”

“No, you didn’t. But you also didn’t ask me to care, and I do that anyway.”

That lands harder than I expect. Her jaw clenches, but her hands are shaking now. She tries to hide it by opening the chip bag with too much force, the crinkle louder than it needs to be. The sound grates against my nerves.

“I don’t want to do this with you right now,” she says, popping a chip into her mouth like that’s the end of the conversation.

I rake a hand through my hair, frustration surging through me like wildfire. “Then stop giving me reasons to be this pissed off.”

Wrong thing to say.

Her head snaps up, eyes blazing. “Wow. I’m such a burden, huh? Sorry myinconvenient little health issuesare messing with your mood.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you meant.”

“It’snot,” I repeat, stepping closer. I’m so close now I can feel the heat of her skin and see the slight tremble in her fingers. “This isn’t about me being pissed. This is about me being scared out of my fucking mind because I care about you more than I should, and you’re acting like none of this matters.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. Her lips part, then close again. Her chest rises and falls too quickly.

And maybe I should walk away.

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