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None of that changed anything.

I couldn’t keep reaching for something that was never really there. Delaying the inevitable would only end up hurting us both. Deep down, I’d always known he would make a better friend than anything else. But I couldn’t say any of that over the phone. He deserved more than that.

Worse still, he didn’t stop.

“Tell me what I can do so we’re in a good place again? I know the other night I was late getting back to you, and talking to Sarah was a stupid thing to do. I really am sorry. I’m trying, I swear. I just… I don’t know if that’s ever going to be enough for you.”

His voice dripped with enough sadness to make sure I was the villain here. The problem. The antihero ready to rip out a heart I’d never really held properly in my hands.

All because I had loved someone else long before him.

I closed my eyes. “I know you care, Ash.”

“I hope you mean that, Sanj.”

I walked to my vanity, opened the top drawer, and grabbed a scrunchie, pulling my hair up like the motion might help me keep everything else together too. “I do mean it, but honestly, I don’t know where we stand right now.”

“Then I’ll have to do a better job of showing you,” he finally said.

Inside my head, a voice wailedno. This was exactly why I should’ve ended our relationship the day it started. Now look at the mess I’d made. Though, to be fair, I’d never broken up with anyone before. My phone lit up with a text, and I glanced at the screen.

1031

The number I’d blocked.

My brows pinched as I caught half the preview box before it went away. I tapped into my inbox, reading the rest.

You leave your window unlocked at night.

That makes it easier to come visit you.

“What?” I whispered to myself, too quiet for Ashton to hear.

I didn’t leave my windows unlocked. Phone in hand, I turned toward the bathroom again, trying to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, half-listening to Ashton talking in the background. Something about me staying over tonight after we left the diner. I poked my head in and saw the trash bag was still in place over the broken window with no signs of tampering. I’d have to ask Cloe if she’d gotten in touch with whoever was supposed to replace the glass.

I stepped back into my room and cut Ashton off. “Hey, Roxxi needs help with something,” I lied. “I’ll see you in a few, okay?”

“Oh, yeah, of course.”

“Bye,” I chirped with all the pep I could muster, hanging up before the next wave of guilt could slam into me any harder.

I put my phone down on the bed and crossed the room to the only window I had. It was beside my bed and overlooked the side of the house. I was sure I’d locked it over a week ago when it started to drizzle. I could envision the day perfectly. I had been sitting on there doing a lit assignment, and crawled over my textbook to shut the window once the rain started.

I peeled my curtain back and pressed my fingers to the bottom edge of the pane where the lip was.

It slid up without resistance.

“No fucking way.”

I stood there, pulse thudding in my ears, staring at the now open window was trying to rationalize how this happened whenI caught movement from below, someone disappearing into our neighbor’s backyard.

“Nope. Fuck this.” I slammed the window shut and locked it—for sure, snagging my phone off the bed before I zipped into the hallway, calling for the girls.

Roxxi and Ari came spilling up the stairs, their voices overlapping. Cloe burst from her bedroom and demanded to know what was wrong.

“My window wasn’t locked.”

They stared at me, not fully understanding. I rubbed my brow, then turned my phone so they could see the screen. “Look. The number I blocked texted me again.”

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