His lips trail down my neck, sending shivers all over.
"I love looking at you," he breathes, brushing the hair off my shoulders. "Will you let me look at you?"
My heart hammers, a wild thing seeking his. "Yes."
So he does. And I feel it. For a long...
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——————————— C A M I L A
I wish I could step out of my body, give it back where it came from, like a pair of pants that don't fit right. I'd like to float around, just a speck of dust lit up by sunlit windows, and I would exist peacefully.
I'm tired. That's all it is. Yeah.
I'm meandering through the GoldwenU upper-level library stacks on a rainy, windy Monday. My finger trails along book spines, picking up dust. My search for Advanced Econometrics is turning into an exhausting quest.
Trying to shake off the aftermath of that phone call, the panic... I'm bad at it. It clings like cobwebs, sticky and persistent. I keep finding threads of it in my hair when I wake up in the middle of the night. Threads over my lips when a door shuts too loudly during class. Walking into webs every time a phone rings.
My brain's been in defense mode for... a week? I've lost track of time. I've barely spoken to anyone unless I had to.
School's been mundane. Not-Brandon has bothered me in class, but I didn't have the energy to curse him out. At work, my fitness clients are happy, the place is clean, and Leo's been around to see me run my first group cycle class.
Operation Maddie feels officially out of my hands now that she goes to the boy's place on her own. She comes back smiling broader each time, calling her friends Lizzy and Yunmi to talk about Fox.
I stretch up when I find my book, fingertips grazing the top of the spine. With a tug, it falls into my hands.
I slump to the floor, back against the shelf, legs kicked out in front of me. Eyes half-closed, I let out a long, slow breath. The weight of the book in my lap is nice. A little bit of a win.
Then there's a thump from above and with a jolt, my heart does that thing—skips a beat, then slams back into rhythm painfully fast. My hands loosen around the book, tired.
God, I'm so, so tired.
"Hey, Sport."
The gentle, low voice cuts through the fog in my head. I blink up, shadows swirling into two familiar forms. Fox in an open jacket with a white shirt beneath. And Noah, behind him, in jeans and a cream cable-knit sweater.
I feel like a wounded bird, wings broken, breathing slowing down, dying on the pavement.
I clear my throat, trying to find my voice, which feels like it's been packed away in one of these books. "Library's closed for private tours, Freckles."
Fox grins, the same easy smile that's a bit disarming. But it's Noah I'm looking at, searching his face for...I don't know. Anger? Disappointment? Relief? Indifference? Regret?
Noah just looks...tired.
"We've been looking for you," Fox says.
"I've been here," I say, and it sounds like an apology.
