Page 131 of Let Me In

He leads me to the couch. Sits down, slow and sure, spreading his legs slightly as he settles.

And pulls me gently between his knees.

“This is going to be on the bare,” he says quietly. “Not to shame you. Not to humiliate. But because it’s real. And I need you to feel it.”

My face burns, and I can’t help but suck my head.

His hands rest lightly on my hips. Not holding. Just there. Close enough that I could lean in and he’d catch me.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

Because my hands are shaking. I try to hide it, tucking them into the folds of the quilt still draped around my shoulders.

But he notices. Of course he does.

“Emmy,” he says, soft. Steady.

I shake my head.

“I don’t—Cal, I don’t think I need that,” I whisper. “I promise I won’t break any more rules. I don’t want to be too much trouble. And this feels like… like trouble.”

He doesn’t react right away.

Just lets the words land.

Then he reaches up.

Takes both my trembling hands in his.

Lays them gently against his chest.

“Sweet girl,” he says, quiet but firm, “you are not trouble. Not now. Not ever.”

I bite the inside of my cheek.

My vision blurs.

“You have a word,” he reminds me. “You remember it?”

“Red,” I whisper.

He nods.

“And if you say it,” he says, voice low, full of that quiet steel that wraps around me like protection, “we stop. Right then. No shame. No disappointment.”

I nod, though it’s barely a movement.

“And if you don’t say it,” he continues, “then I’m going to give you exactly what you need to remember next time.”

The air in the room stills. My pulse roars in my ears.

And still—I don’t say it.

The silence wraps around us. Thick with everything unsaid.

I feel it pressing at the edges of me, inside the fragile space between fear and trust. My fingers twitch against his chest.

---