Page 99 of Without a Trace
“Because you were sitting with him.”
I held my breath.
“But you were laughing,” he said, voice lower now. “With him. And I—I thought maybe I imagined it all. Maybe I wanted something that wasn’t real.”
“I didn’t choose him,” I snapped.
He blinked. “No. But you didn’t choose me either.”
I pivoted—sharp, defiant—needing space not to breathe, but to survive.
The fire crackled behind me, fierce and untamed. Or maybe that was just my pulse slamming against my ribs, desperate to escape.
“I didn’t choose him,” I repeated, lower this time. A confession. A dare.
Trace didn’t respond. Just stood there, shoulders tense, hands clenched at his sides, chest rising as he swallowed whatever storm lived inside him.
I dragged a hand through my hair, restless. “I didn’t choose you either.”
He finally looked up.
But I looked away.
“Do you want to know the truth?” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I couldn’t choose. Not because I didn’t care—but because I cared too much. About both of you.”
He lit a cigarette. The flame touched his face for a flicker of a second.
“I’ve been trying to figure it out since that night,” I continued, voice low. “Why I froze. Why I let it all unravel instead of speaking.”
My fingers curled into the hem of my dress.
“Maybe I was afraid of choosing wrong. Maybe I thought I’d lose something either way.”
His eyes darkened, but he didn’t interrupt.
“I kept waiting for a sign. For one of you to give me something undeniable. Something to make it easy.”
I turned to him again, hands open at my sides. “But nothing about this has ever been easy.”
Trace scratched absently at his forearm again.
I saw it.
Felt it.
That quiet ache under the skin neither of us dared name.
I looked at him—really looked at him. The tilt of his mouth, the weight in his shoulders, the way he was trying not to reach for me.
“I couldn’t be what you wanted back then,” I said. “I don’t even know who I am now.”
His eyes flickered, but he didn’t argue.
“I still don’t know how to choose,” I whispered. “Maybe I never will.”
The silence stretched between us, thick with everything we couldn’t fix.
He stared at the fire, shadows casting across his face, all sharp angles and fury and fucking heartbreak.
