12. Awake
Chapter twelve
Awake
Emma
I wake up in my bed with no memory of how I got here.
That’s not entirely true. I remember fragments .
The kind of half-formed sensory impressions that live at the edge of sleep, too slippery to hold but too vivid to dismiss.
The truck engine cutting off. Cold air against my face.
Arms, or maybe just an arm, guiding me upstairs.
A door code being punched in— beep beep beep beep .
A comment about it still being the same from when this was his house, his room .
My comforter being pulled over me. The mattress shifting as weight settled, then lifted.
And then maybe, possibly, in the space between dream and waking, the lightest pressure against my forehead. Lips that were there and gone before I could fully register them. A breath. A whisper I couldn’t catch.
The evidence: I’m in my bed. Still wearing last night’s clothes minus my shoes, which are placed neatly by the door.
Placed , not kicked off, which means someone with a compulsive need for order removed them.
My jacket is draped over the desk chair.
My phone is plugged in and charging on my nightstand.
I did not plug in my phone.
Luke carried me into my house, took off my shoes, charged my phone, and may or may not have kissed my forehead while I slept.
After I destroyed him in a game of one-on-one. A game—
Shit.
I finally look at my phone, remember the text from Drew last night that started everything. The one that reminded me he’d be present tonight. Watching.
While I ignore him like he doesn’t actually exist.
Because it’s not like I have to acknowledge him when he’s the one in the stands and I'm on the ice.
No, you just have to face the rest of your former team there.
I bury my face in the pillow. Want to scream at the irony of this whole fucked up situation. But I stop cold when I catch the faintest scent (hell, I might even be imagining it) of sandalwood. The same smell I was breathing in the cab of his truck last night.
And just like last night, my body relaxes. Calms in a way I can’t fully explain.
Then I get up. Shower. Become the version of Emma Cole who can walk into Boston College’s arena and not fall apart.