Page 51 of Midnight Between Us
“Fuck, this place is a bunker,” I say.
“No,” Simone replies, already moving toward the kitchen.“It’s my house.”
I scoff because nothing about this place feels like a home.Not even to her.The agent disappears into a side room, mumbling something about files.I don’t care.
I watch her move.Everything about her is professional and can’t fucking read her at all, and that drives me crazy.I’ve known her forever and she became my little shadow when she was eight, and I was barely ten years old.We were inseparable because even when the world didn’t like us, we understood each other.
Now ...I did this.This is how I wanted to end whatever the fuck she thought we had.But I can’t stand it, and it’s been like this for weeks.
Every day, she checks my vitals without looking me in the eye.Schedules my therapy like she’s running a factory.Leaves my meals on the table next to my bed and only asks questions if they’re directly tied to my chart.
It’s been six weeks of that.
Waking up in this house that doesn’t feel like a home, being monitored by the only person I’ve ever been able to connect with who treats me with indifference and a dash of hate.
I’m not sure I’ll be allowed to leave.
Not because I’m still too injured.But because someone somewhere is deciding whether I live or die—and Simone might already know which side they’ve chosen.My leg’s starting to throb, and my ribs feel like someone boxed me in with rebar.I’m breathing harder than I want to, which makes me sound worse than I am.
Simone watches me—not in pity.In calculation.
“You should go back to your room to rest,” she says.
I nod.
Big mistake.
The floor tilts.Just slightly.My vision narrows, and my good leg buckles a half-second too late.
I don’t fall hard.But I do fall.
Straight into her.
She’s not big enough to catch me, but she tries anyway.Her hands go to my sides, shoulder beneath mine, and for one second, I’m pressed against her as if the past is still happening.
We freeze.
I feel her breath.Feel her pulse.
She doesn’t look up.
“Let go,” I whisper.
“Can’t,” she mutters.
I’m not sure which one of us she’s talking to.
Then the agent’s back, lifting my other arm as if none of it had happened.Between the two of them, I’m upright again.Simone steps back fast.Like contact with me burns.
She doesn’t touch me anymore.
Not like that.
Not since I fucked it all up.
And even now, after six weeks of silence, six weeks of her pretending I’m just another case to monitor, all it took was one second of contact—her hands on me, her breath close—and suddenly I’m back there, at the lake.In that moment.In the goddamn minute before I ruined it all.
It was late.Too quiet.The kind of night where everything already feels like an ending.
