Page 108 of The Ache That Stayed

Roxanne came back that evening. And everything almost looked normal. She stood at the counter, back to me, stirring the pot as though nothing had happened. Like we weren’t sitting on top of a landmine, only one wrong word away from it blowing up. As if the ground beneath us wasn’t about to split open.

I watched her closely for a beat too long. Her shoulders were tense. Her gaze kept drifting toward the window, as though she expected someone to appear. She held herself like she was waiting for bad news.

Yeah. Something was off. And it wasn’t just us anymore.

The feeling had been crawling at the back of my neck all day. Like a shadow was getting closer.

I exhaled slowly. I’d had enough.

“Roxanne,” I said.

My voice came out lower than I intended. Controlled—but barely.

“We need to talk.”

CHAPTER 29

Roxanne

Those four words felt like a gun to my head.

It was never good when someone said we need to talk.

It was the death of silence. The death of the fragile illusion of peace I had carefully built inside my head.

I had avoided him.

Avoided this. Avoided the truth sitting between us, waiting to be acknowledged. I’d sidestepped the obvious, pretended the fire licking at our heels didn’t already exist.

The silence stretched longer than it should have, thick and oppressive, gnawing at my insides. I turned off the stove and slowly faced him. He stood there at the counter, arms folded across his chest, ankle crossed like he had all the time in the world—while I was running out of it. But his eyes—they never left mine, darkening with something unreadable. And that was worse than anger, because it meant he was holding it in. Waiting to unleash it.

My heart pounded against my ribs at the sight of him.

The flex of his muscles sent a slow, treacherous shiver down my spine—settling low—traitorous.

Nope.

I couldn’t do this. He had already messed with my head enough. Talking to him now would only make it worse.

I let out a humourless laugh.

Deflect. Always deflect.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

The lie slipped out easily. My voice came out flat. Indifferent. Like none of this mattered. Like he didn’t matter. But inside, I was already spiralling, already unravelling thread by thread.

“There is.” He said through clenched teeth. “About the last four days.”

He took a step toward me.

“About the motel.” Another step. “About the fact that you’ve been avoiding me like I did something wrong.”

“Didn’t you?” I snapped back.

It was sharper than I intended to. A muscle in his jaw ticked.

“Say what you mean.”