Panic is a liar that speaks in absolutes.
The attack subsides in waves, leaving me hollowed out and raw on the bathroom floor. I recognize it now for what it was—hyperventilation, the racing heart, the certainty of doom—my first, though probably not my last.
My palms press flat against the cold tiles, grounding myself in the sensation, the physical reality of porcelain and grout beneath my skin.
I try to reconstruct a person who can return to a party. The effort feels monumental, like rebuilding a cathedral from scattered stones while the congregation waits outside.
My breath comes easier now, each inhale less desperate than the one before. The mint-green tiles blur and sharpen as my vision stabilizes.
I count the squares beneath my fingers—one, two, three—anchoring myself to the tangible world until my heart stops trying to escape my chest.
Then the knock comes. Hard, insistent, three sharp raps that make me flinch against the door.
"Skye." Kai's voice, low and urgent. "Open the door."
"Go away." My voice sounds foreign, scraped thin by tears I barely remember crying.
"Let me in or I'll break it down."
I believe him. The conviction in his voice leaves no room for doubt, no space for negotiation. My hands shake as I reach for the lock, fumbling with the mechanism until it clicks free.
He pushes through before I can change my mind, filling the small space with his presence, his anger, his concern. The bathroom shrinks around us, the walls pressing closer as he stops two feet from where I sit crumpled against the porcelain.
His expression shifts when he sees me. Hair fallen from its pins, mascara smudged beneath my eyes, the tear in my silk dress that thorns made during my garden escape with Travis.
My heels lie abandoned near the tub, and my bare feet press against the tile like I am trying to root myself to the earth.
"What happened?" he asks, and his voice carries an edge I have never heard before—protective, furious, barely contained.
"A panic attack, I guess." I press my palms against my thighs, willing the trembling to stop. "I'm fine now."
"That bastard." He steps closer, crowding me against the sink until I am forced to look up at him. "What did he do?"
I study his eyes in the harsh bathroom light and see it there—the understanding. He knows Travis. Has known him, perhaps, longer than I have known him myself.
"Nothing new." I wrap my arms around myself, holding the pieces together. "Nothing I haven't survived before."
His hands find my face before I can protest, thumbs brushing roughly at the tears I did not know I had shed. His touch is urgent, almost angry, cataloging damage with fingers that shake slightly against my skin.
"You look like hell," he says, and the words are tender despite their bluntness.
"That's because I just got back," I try to smile.
The joke lands between us, fragile and dark, and I see his mouth twitch with the ghost of appreciation. But his eyes remain serious, searching my face for wounds he cannot see, for explanations I do not want to give.
I want Travis out of my head. Want the feel of his hands off my jaw, his voice out of my ears, his reconstruction of reality undone.
I want to feel safe, anchored, and real. I look at Kai's face—genuine concern instead of his usual performance, his mask dropped without my having to ask—and I want him.
"What can I do for you?" The question comes sharp, like he has read my mind. "Tell me what you want."
Again, I kiss him first.
Desperate, hungry, my fingers tangling in his hair to pull him closer, my body pressing against his to erase the memory of Travis's proximity. He startles, stiffens—and then responds with equal ferocity, backing me against the sink.
His hands move to my waist, my hips, the torn silk of my dress, and the kiss becomes teeth and tongue and need, a transaction of sensation that blocks out everything else.
He breaks it first, breathing hard, his forehead pressed against mine. "Skye—"
"Don't talk." I kiss his jaw, his throat, anywhere I can reach. "Don't make it into something. Just—"
"Stop." He catches my wrists and holds me still, his eyes dark and searching in the fluorescent light. "Tell me how I can help you."
I do not know what he wants to hear. I do not know how he can help me. Can he?
The words pour out before I can catch them, the truth I have carried since arriving in this house, this town, this life that was never meant to be permanent.
"I want to leave," I whisper.
Kai goes still. His hands drop from my wrists like I have burned him.
"Leave," he repeats, and the word sounds different in his mouth—smaller, more wounded.
"Yes." I grip the edge of the sink behind me, needing the support. "I've always wanted to leave for California. That was the plan. Finish this year, save enough, disappear."
"You want to leave me." He says this like I've just told him I'm dying and chosen not to fight it.
"There is no you to leave." The words come out desperate and cruel. "There's whatever this is—this mistake, this—" I gesture between us, at the wreckage of silk and tears and tangled desire, "—this thing that can't go anywhere. You're my student. My stepbrother."
He steps back like I have shoved him. I did not touch him, but my words did the work my hands refused.
"What did you think would happen once you graduate?" I raise my voice against my will. "That we'd continue? That I'd stay in this house, in this town, playing house with you while my career—"
"Yes." The word explodes from him, raw and furious and honest in a way that terrifies me. "Yes, that's exactly what I thought. That we'd figure it out. That you'd want to figure it out."
"I never wanted to figure it out." I watch his expression close like a door slamming shut against light. "Leaving was my end goal all along, Kai. From the day I arrived. You were never part of the plan."
The silence stretches between us, terrible and complete. He steps back, putting distance between our bodies that feels like miles, like continents, like the entire width of a country I have been planning to cross.
"Then I was what?" His voice has gone quiet, controlled, and the control is worse than shouting. "Distraction? Entertainment while you waited for your real life to start?"
"No—"
"Don't." The word cuts through my protest before I can finish it. "Don't explain. Don't make it kind. You used me. Same as everyone uses everyone in this fucking house."
He reaches for the door handle, and I watch his shoulders set themselves against whatever I might say next. He pauses without turning, his profile sharp and closed in the bathroom's harsh light.
"Enjoy California, Skye." His voice carries no inflection now, no warmth. "I hope it gives you whatever you think you're missing here in Arizona."
The door opens. The door closes.
I stand alone in the bathroom, surrounded by mint-green tiles and the ghost of his cologne, and realize that I have finally succeeded in driving away the only person who came looking for me tonight.
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