Page 20 of Watching You
I want to know what she looks like when she breaks. Not loudly, not violently, but slowly.
I want to watch her routines rot, her rules fail, her breath hitch every time she sees me.
I want her to feel me in the spaces she thought were hers. In her planner. In her journal. In the way she folds her sweater and counts her steps. I want her to stopcounting. I want her to forget how to stay clean. I want her to know what it feels like to burn.
I don’t want her love. I want her obedience. Her surrender. Her soul.
And I’ll take it piece by piece.
Quietly.
Deliberately.
Until she’s mine.
My mind focuses back on Blair when I see Micah Jameson move through campus like he’s auditioning for something, swagger in every step, grin sharpened to a blade, always loud enough to be heard but never clear enough to be trusted. He’s the kind of guy who thrives on attention, who collects girls like trophies and forgets their names by morning. I’ve watched him on the field, fast and reckless, all flash and no discipline. Coach likes him because he wins games. The team tolerates him because he throws parties, but I see through him. I see the way he watches Blair. Not with curiosity. Not with respect. With hunger. With calculation. Like she’s a thing to be taken, not a person to be known.
Micah spots her from across the lawn and changes direction. It’s subtle, but I catch it, the shift in his posture, the way his smile sharpens, the way he adjusts his pace to intercept. He’s done this before. To other girls. With other outcomes. But Blair isn’t like them. She’s not built for casual touch or careless words. She’s built from silence and structure and the kind of fragility that looks like steel until you press too hard. And Micah presses.
He steps into her path, says something I can’t hear, and reaches out, just a hand on her arm, just a touch. But she flinches. I see it. The way her body recoils, the way her breath stutters, the way she tries to pull away without making a scene. She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t shove. She just folds inward, like she’s trying to disappear. And something in me snaps.
I push off the hood, fists already tight, blood already hot. I don’t care what he said. I don’t care if he meant it as a joke. I care that she flinched. I care that she tried to escape. I care that he touched her like he had the right. And he doesn’t. He never will.
Because Blair Everett isn’t his to approach.
She isn’t his to touch.
She isn’t his to make flinch.
She’s mine.
Even if she doesn’t know it yet.
Even if she’s still trying to stay clean.
Even if she’s still counting steps and folding sweaters and pretending she’s invisible.
I see her.
I feel her.
And I’ll make damn sure no one else gets close enough to make her pull away.
I catch up to him behind the science building, where the campus thins out and the noise dies. Micah’s alone, tossing his duffel over one shoulder, still riding the high of whatever he thought that moment with Blair was. He doesn’t see me at first. He never does. That’s the problem with guys like him, they thinkattention is power. They think being seen means being in control. But real control is quiet. It’s patient. It’s the moment before the hit lands.
He turns when he hears my steps, and his grin flickers, just for a second. Just enough. “Fischer,” he says, casual, like we’re more than teammates, like we’re equals. We’re not. I don’t answer. I just keep walking until I’m close enough to smell the sweat on his collar and see the twitch in his jaw. He shifts his stance, tries to square up, but I’m already in his space.
“You touched her,” I say, voice low, steady, the kind of calm that makes people nervous. “She flinched.”
Micah scoffs and tries to play it off. “Relax, man. I was just saying hi. Didn’t know she was yours.”
That word—yours—hits like a match to gasoline. Not because it’s wrong. Because it’s premature. Because he said it like a joke. Like a dare. Like he doesn’t understand what it means.
“She’s not a joke,” I counter. “She’s not a party favor. She’s not something you get to lean into and test the waters.”
He rolls his eyes, shifts his weight, tries to laugh. “Damn, man. You’re really wound up. I didn’t do anything.”
“You touched her,” I repeat. “She pulled away.”
