Beverly was sprawled across her bed, tangled in her sheets, her bare legs stretched out, and her fingers lazily flipping through a magazine. She didn’t even bother to look up, as if she hadn’t just spent the last few years digging her nails under my skin and prying me open.

She wore nothing but a pair of soft cotton shorts and a white shirt she had stolen from me months ago. Her blonde hair was down now, falling around her shoulders in a way that looked effortless but wasn’t. She licked her finger, turned a page, and acted like I hadn’t just broken every rule by walking into her room without a second thought.

“About time,” she drawled lazily, still not looking at me. Her lips twitched as she flipped another page. “Took you long enough. I was starting to think you’d just sit in the car all night.”

I stood there for a moment, my chest rising and falling with the effort to keep my composure, but something thick and heavy coiled in my throat.

“Why are you just standing there?”

I shut the door behind me.

Beverly looked up at me, watching me with that look.

The one that said she was winning.

I crossed the room in a few steps and stopped beside her bed. “Get up.”

She raised a brow in amusement. “Bossy.”

“Up. Now.”

She rolled her eyes but sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Bare legs. Soft skin. Pink nail polish.

I ignored all of it.

Or at least, I tried.

“Here,” I hissed through gritted teeth, pulling the scrunchie off my wrist and tossing it onto her lap.

She blinked, caught off guard. “What⁠—”

“You left it on me for years. Take it back.”

She swallowed, her fingers curling around the fabric.

God, I hated this. That she was looking at me like she wanted to pick me apart piece by piece, until there was nothing left but her name carved into my bones.

I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “No witty comeback, huh?”

She sighed, the fabric of my shirt slipping off her shoulder.

I could feel the tension thickening in the room, pulling tighter and tighter. Then she tilted her head slightly, watching me like she was debating something. And then, before I could even argue, her hands slid up my forearms. I went completely still as her nails scraped against my skin, leaving invisible marks in their wake.

My throat went dry. My fingers twitched at my sides.

She was looking up at me through her lashes, waiting. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to turn around, to walk away, to put distance between us before I did something I couldn’t take back. But then her fingers traced over the veins in my wrist, light, barely-there touches, like she was trying to see if I’d stop her.