Jess was nestled under my arm, with her back against my side and her hand resting on my bicep. She was wearing Jason’s shirt, her bare legs curled up slightly so her feet were pressed against my calf. The sun had just risen, a reddish orange glow peeking through her curtains.

I didn’t usually wake up this early, but I didn’t usually sleep away from home either. That familiar ache of anxiety bloomed in my chest, growing like a mass that pressed on my lungs.

I’d made a mistake. I wasn’t supposed to sleep here.

The last time I’d slept by her side, we’d been in my old bedroom in the Peters’ family home. I’d laid awake for hours that night just looking at her, at how soft her face was while she slept, how her lips twitched and her nose wrinkled as she dreamed. A simple dare had brought her into my arms, and it had seemed too good to be true.

Because it was. She left in the morning with one of the sweetest goodbyes I’d ever heard and then — nothing. Gone. Ghosted.

I was left feeling like I’d made the biggest mistake of my life and had no idea how to remedy it other than to simply let her go. That was the choice she’d made, and I had to respect it.

But now, if she made that decision again…when she did…

I didn’t know if I could respect it this time.

I was able to get a better look at her room in daylight. I hadn’t been paying much attention when Lucas and I broke in here, too distracted with the game to bother examining my surroundings. Her walls were painted crisp white, and there were still a few cardboard boxes stacked in the corner, taped shut and labeled with a sharpie. She hadn’t finished unpacking yet; maybe she didn’t intend to, especially if she planned to move in a few months anyway.

Her blankets were covered in a sunflower print. Glass figurines lined one of her shelves, and they caught the light and refracted it in prisms across the wall. The three shelves below were covered in trophies, medals, and sparkling crowns.

There was a stack of books on her desk, open notebooks and sticky notes spread across its messy surface. I tipped my head so I could read the spines, my eyes feeling too dry after having slept in my contacts. A book titled Form, Space, and Order had numerous multi-colored tabs sticking out from its pages, and most of the other titles looked like similar non-fiction. She had jars full of pencils and pens, and a small potted plant that looked like it was struggling to survive.