The two hours of sleep I managed after sneaking out of Nate's room feel like shards of glass behind my eyelids, but I'm already lacing up my running shoes. Sometimes moving is easier than staying still with your thoughts. The house holds its breath around me, as if afraid to disturb the remnants of darkness we fought through together. I can't shake the image of Nate from my mind—his eyes wild with terror, body trembling beneath the weight of nightmares that have haunted him since childhood. But now they seem darker, more violent, as if something fundamental inside him is unraveling.

It happened like so quickly.

One minute I was dreaming, the next his scream tore through the walls—sharp and broken. I tried to snap him out of it, only to find him above me, his hands pinning mine to the bed with a desperate strength I didn't know he possessed. For a heartbeat, I didn't recognize him through the mask of fear distorting his features.

But then reality crashed in, and I knew—he was lost in one of his nightmares again.

The horror that crossed his face when he recognized me carved itself into my memory.

He scrambled away, apologies spilling from his lips. But beneath my concern, beneath the ache of watching him suffer, something else stirred—a heat that caught me off guard, desire threading through my veins. I can still feel him pressed against me, and I wanted—God, I wanted him. But I couldn't voice that need, not when he was shattered with shame. And even if I could reach for him now, the shadow of what Evan did to me last summer looms like a wall between us. The way he stripped me down to nothing, left me feeling small, powerless, broken. I haven't let anyone touch me since then—not really, not in the ways that matter.

And then last night, after Nate finally calmed and I held him like I used to when we were kids, words I never meant to speak slipped out into the darkness between us. I'm still not sure if he was awake, his breathing had evened out against my collar bone, but the confession hung in the air like smoke—how afraid I was, how weak I felt, how the thought of being touched again made me want to crawl out of my own skin.

Now, with the inevitability of seeing Evan again, my stomach turns to ice. The mere thought of pretending everything is fine makes bile rise in my throat.

My lungs burn as I push myself harder along the empty streets, trying to outrun memories that refuse to fade. With every exhale, I attempt to release the past. He's always been damaged in his own way, carrying scars that run deeper than the ones visible on his skin. When we were kids, I thought I could protect him from nightmares. Now I'm not sure who needs protecting more.