Chapter 8 #2
The words hit like a blade.
Not because they’re true.
Because they’re cruel.
Because they’re careless.
Because they’re about her.
I don’t think.
I don’t speak.
I move.
My fist connects with his jaw before he finishes the grin. The sound is sharp—bone, skin, shock. He stumbles back, hand flying to his face, eyes wide with disbelief. There’s blood. There’s silence. There’s the kind of stillness that only comes after violence.
I step forward again, slow and deliberate, voice like gravel. “Say her name like that again, and I’ll break more than your jaw.”
Micah doesn’t answer. He’s too busy bleeding. Too busy realizing I’m not bluffing. Not posturing. Not playing.
Because Blair isn’t just some girl.
She’s not a punchline.
She’s not a weakness.
She’s the only thing in this world that makes me feel like I still have something worth protecting.
And if anyone tries to touch her again—
If anyone tries to speak about her like she’s less than sacred—
They’ll learn exactly what kind of monster I’ve been trying not to be.
My knuckles are still throbbing, skin split just enough to sting when I flex.
I should be in class. I should be anywhere else.
But I’m not. I’m walking toward Meadow View Hall, adrenaline still humming in my bloodstream, jaw tight, thoughts louder than they should be.
I know she’s not there—Blair. Third period psych.
She never misses it. Kinsley either. That’s the point.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the emergency key card. Kinsley gave it to me a week ago, pressed it into my hand with a worried look and a quiet, “Just in case she spirals.” She meant it as a lifeline. A safety net. She has no idea what she gave me. No idea what I’d do with it.
The lock clicks open.
The door swings in.
And I step into their world.
It’s small. Clean. Lived-in. Two beds, two desks, two lives folded into one room.
Kinsley’s side is chaos—textbooks, makeup bags, a hoodie draped over the chair.
Blair’s side is orderly. Ritual. A planner aligned with the edge of the desk.
A journal tucked beneath it. A gray sweater folded with surgical precision.
I don’t touch anything. Not yet. I just breathe it in.
This is where she hides.
Where she counts.
Where she tries to stay calm.
I walk to her desk, fingers grazing the edge. I imagine her here, legs tucked under the chair, pen in hand, trying to write the noise out of her head. I imagine her folding that sweater, smoothing the fabric, aligning the seams. I imagine her thinking this space is safe. Untouched. Hers.
But it’s not. Not anymore.
I sit in her chair. Lean back. Let the silence wrap around me.
Let the scent of her shampoo cling to the air.
Let the tension settle in my chest like a second heartbeat.
Kinsley would lose her mind if she knew.
She’d call it a violation. She’d call it betrayal.
But I call it proximity. I call it inevitability. I call it mine.
Because Blair doesn’t belong to this room. She doesn’t belong to her routines. She belongs to me.
And when she comes back, when she steps into this space and feels the shift, she’ll know.
She’s not alone anymore.
I didn’t come here to touch.
I came here to change.
Her room is a map of her mind. Every object placed with intention, every fold a ritual, every silence a shield. But rituals can be rewritten. Shields can be cracked. And I’m not here to admire her system. I’m here to insert myself into it.
I walk to her bed, pick up the gray pillow she sleeps on, and spray my cologne, just once.
Just enough. The scent clings to the fabric, sharp and clean, the kind that lingers in hair and skin and memory.
Then I sit down, slow and deliberate, letting my weight rumple the sheets she smoothed this morning.
It’s subtle. But she’ll feel it. She’ll notice the shift.
She’ll wonder why her sanctuary doesn’t feel untouched anymore.
At her desk, I flip open her planner. Color-coded tabs.
Perfect spacing. A calendar that looks more like a confession.
I find the date of my first game—Friday, 12:30 p.m.—and mark it in red.
Not her color. Not her system. Mine. She’ll see it.
She’ll pause. She’ll wonder who put it there. And she’ll know.
Her phone is still on the desk. She must’ve left it in her rush this morning, too shaken by the note to remember the rest. I pick it up, thumb past the lock screen—Kinsley’s birthday.
I know it. I saw her enter it several times when she was in my car.
I open her contacts and add myself: Kane, no last name, no label.
Just a number. Just presence. Just a thread she didn’t tie herself.
Then I go deeper.
I install a tracker app—quiet, hidden, buried beneath the weather widget. Not because I don’t trust her. Because I don’t trust them. Micah. Anyone like him. Anyone who thinks her silence is an invitation. I won’t let her be cornered again. I won’t let her flinch.
I sync her period app to my phone. It’s not about control. It’s about knowing. About understanding the rhythms she won’t say out loud. About being ready when she’s vulnerable. When she’s raw. When she needs someone who already knows.
I put the phone back exactly where she left it.
I smooth the planner closed.
I stand in the center of the room and breathe.
She’ll come back soon.
She’ll feel the shift.
She’ll feel me.
And she’ll know that her routines aren’t hers anymore.
They’re ours.