Page 75 of Freestyle
Because her eyes are shining, not angry, not sharp, just…tired.Like she’s been carrying this for too long, and the straps finally tore.
“You broke me,” she says, her voice quivering. “Then you left me,” she says quieter.
Not a scream. A statement, and I hate how right she is.
I step forward, just once. I don’t reach for her—God, I don’t evenbreathenear her.
“I know,”I whisper. “And I’m sorry doesn’t scratch the surface. I don’t want forgiveness, Rowyn. I just want you safe.”
Her lips tremble, not enough to be a cry, but I see it. The first crack in all that steel she wears.
“You’re too late,” she says. “He already got inside. You said you’d bleed to protect me, but you bled me first.”
Phoenix lowers his head like he’s praying to ghosts we don’t believe in. His voice is rough. “We didn’t mean to make you feel—”
“Unloveable?” she cuts in. “Disposable? Like the way you laughed when you took that picture of me while I was naked, threatening to send it to the whole school? Did you think making me get on my knees for you wasn’t something that would live in my bones forever?”
I blink hard.
She’s crying now, finally, and it breaks me in a way I didn’t expect. Silent tears, falling one after another, no drama, no performance.
“I showed up that night,” she says, voice shaking, “because I thought maybe I could stop being afraid, but now I think I’m just tired of pretending I didn’t matter.”
“You matter,” I say, stepping closer before I can stop myself. “Rowyn, you’ve mattered every second.”
“Then why did it take a file and a monster tosee it?”
I can’t answer.
So instead, I kneel. Right there. Like a knight without armor. Like someone begging, not for redemption, but for permission to try.
“I can’t undo what we did,” I whisper. “But I can stand between you and the dark for the rest of my life, if you’ll let me.”
She doesn’t move, she doesn’t run.
And maybe, for tonight, that’s enough.
Seventeen
Rowyn
Theschoolbuildingsfallaway behind me, but the shadows stay.
I don’t ask where we’re going when Gray leads me through the back entrance of the house, Phoenix silent at my heels. I don’t need to ask. I already know.
Gray’s room is dim, just a single lamp burning low in the corner, casting long shadows across the gray walls and the old swimming trophies lining his shelves. But it’s not the room that stops me.
It’s them.
The silencebetween us is weighted, alive, breathing. I should be afraid. A small, fractured part of me is. But there’s something stronger, something sharp and coiled, that’s kept me standing all night.
The door clicks shut behind us.
Gray’s eyes haven’t left mine since we walked into his room. Phoenix has taken up position near the door, silent, alert, watching me like he’s waiting for me to break.
I don’t know where to stand. Where to look. The walls feel too close, and the air’s too thick with things unsaid.
“We need to know what’s going on,” Gray says, voice low but steady. “Why the hell did you freak out so bad in the quad?”
