Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Hailey curls up on the couch with her book, turning pages at a pace that tells me she’s not absorbing a single word. Her eyes keep drifting toward the windows. Toward me. Toward Liam.
We’re all pretending to be calm and fooling no one.
Seventy. Eighty.
I catch Hailey watching me over the top of her book. Her gaze traces down my back, lingers somewhere around my hips, then snaps away when she realizes I’ve noticed. Heat crawls up my neck.
Ninety. One hundred.
I switch to planks. Hold until my core trembles, until sweat drips off my forehead and darkens the rug beneath me. My body screams for relief and I refuse to give it, because pain I can control is better than everything I can’t.
“You know,” Liam says from the kitchen, “there’s a fine line between working out and self-punishment.”
I drop out of the plank and flip onto my back, staring at the ceiling while my heart rate slowly returns to normal. Exposed beams overhead. Wood and stone and glass. A prison designed to make prisoners comfortable.
“Feel better?” Liam asks.
“No.”
“Shocking.” He starts plating food. “Breakfast is ready.”
We eat in near-silence. The eggs are good, the bacon is perfect, and I can barely taste any of it. My eyes keep finding Hailey across the table. The way she pushes food around her plate without eating. The way her fingers drum against her mug. The way she very carefully doesn’t look at either of us for too long.
Liam notices too. I catch him watching her, and the look on his face isn’t casual. When Hailey reaches for the salt, Liam hands it to her before she gets there. Their fingers brush. She pulls back fast, but not fast enough.
The last time we were alone, I cooked her dinner at my apartment. She kissed me in my kitchen and I could still feel it days later. Now she’s sitting three feet away from the man she used to share a bed with, and I’m supposed to act like that doesn’t gut me.
“More coffee?” Liam asks her.
“I’m good.”
“You haven’t eaten.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You should eat.”
“Liam.” She gives him a look. “I’m fine.”
He backs off, but the familiarity of it stings. He knows she doesn’t eat when she’s stressed. Knows when to push and when to stop. I’m learning those things about her in real time. He learned them years ago.
I stand up and take my plate to the sink. Wash it. Dry it. Put it away.
The afternoon is long. We go over the plan again in the blind spot, refining details, poking holes. Liam does pull-ups on the doorframe, counting under his breath. Hailey goes back to her book. I check the windows again because I can’t help myself.
At one point, Hailey and I end up in the kitchen at the same time. She’s making tea. I’m getting water. The space is small and we’re close, and when she turns around she almost walks into my chest.
“Sorry.” She steps back, but not far.
“You’re fine.”
We stand there. The kettle hisses behind her. Liam is across the room, doing something with the bookshelves, not looking at us. Or pretending not to.
Hailey’s eyes come up to mine. I can see her trying to say something and not finding the words for it. Not here. Not with Liam ten feet away.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Shakes her head like she’s arguing with herself, then takes her tea and walks back to the couch without a word.
I stay in the kitchen longer than I need to.
By evening, the plan has been picked apart and put back together twice. We’ve run through every scenario we can think of and most of them end badly. The wine comes out again because there’s nothing else to do with the hours between sundown and sleep.
But the ease of last night isn’t there. Liam tries to tell another story and it dies halfway through. Hailey stares into her glass. I stare into the fire.
“I’m trying really hard to be positive. But I’m also afraid we’re trapped here,” she says, her voice quieter now. “For eight more days. Maybe the rest of our lives, if Marlena has her way.”
The silence stretches. The fire sizzles. Outside, wind howls against the windows.
Liam looks at me. I look at Hailey. Hailey looks at both of us.
Nobody moves.
“I’m taking a shower,” she says flatly.
She stalks toward the bathroom. The door clicks shut behind her.
Liam and I stare at each other. The fire pops between us. I can still feel where Hailey almost touched me in the kitchen, the ghost of a conversation we didn’t have.
“She’s struggling,” Liam says. Not to me, exactly. More like he’s thinking out loud. “She used to do this. Shut down when she couldn’t fix things. Go quiet. I’d have to—”
“I know what she needs.”
Liam stops mid-sentence. Looks at me.