Page 211 of Terms of Exposure
"He's been texting me. A lot. Since I left." I swallowed hard. "I never blocked him because I thought—I thought if I could just keep track of him, keep tabs on his moods, I'd know when to be careful."
"Okay." Sebastian's voice was measured. Careful. "That makes sense."
"Tonight, while we were at the fair..." I turned the phone over in my hands. "Someone saw us. Took a photo and sent it to him."
"Can I see?"
I handed him the phone.
Sebastian's thumb scrolled through the messages, his expression shifting with each swipe. Confusion. Disbelief. Then something darker—his knuckles white against the phone case.
He stopped on the photo. Stared at it.
When he looked up at me, his voice was barely recognizable.
"How long?" His voice wavered. "What has he done?"
I didn't look away.
I told him how it started.
Charming. Attentive. Obsession dressed as devotion.
I told him how that devotion tightened.
How it narrowed.
How it closed.
I told him about the slap at Damien's house.
About the night Garrett showed up at my apartment and the cops had to drag him out.
I told him about the texts.
The hundreds of them.
The cycle that never stopped.
I didn't spare him anything. Not a single horrific detail.
By the time I was done, my voice was shredded. My face wet.
And for the first time since he'd woken from his coma, Sebastian didn't have a single joke.
The silence stretched.
He stared at the phone in his hands like it might detonate.
"Sebastian?" My voice came out small. "Say something."
He set the phone down on the coffee table.
"I want to kill him."
The words were quiet. Flat.
I recoiled.
