“Idon’t… I don’t understand,” I whisper. “He was— He was just texting me. He’s inside, right? He’s?—”
I look around frantically, my heart slamming against my ribs.
“He’s waiting for me. I just need to find him. He’s here. He has to be here.”
Jake’s face contorts, something wrecked behind his eyes. “Amy, I?—”
I snap my head back to him. And I see it.
His face.
His voice.
His name.
My stomach drops, a sickening, vertigo-inducing lurch.
A ringing starts in my ears.
My hands are ice.
My stomach clenches hard, nausea clawing its way up my throat.
No. No. No, no, no!
I gasp, but my lungs won’t work. Then the room tilts.
I think I sway. I don’t know. I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel anything.
Where is he?
The thought comes frantic… desperate and irrational. But my body isn’t listening. It’s shutting down.
I can’t breathe.
Ican’tbreathe.
It was him. It wasalways him.
My legs buckle, and I catch myself at the last second, gripping the wall like it’s the only thing keeping me fromhitting the floor.
Everything blurs—faces, lights, voices. It’s like someone pulled the plug on reality, and I’m spiraling down the drain.
“It was you,” I whisper, my vision tunneling. “It wasalwaysyou.”
His voice is lower in person, rougher, and I hate that I notice. Hate that it sounds exactly like I imagined whispering into my neck.
The room shrinks, pressing in around me, the air too thick. The sound of clinking champagne glasses and polite laughter warps, drowning beneath the blood roaring in my ears.
Jake steps forward. “Amy, please, just?—”
“Why?” My voice is barely there. My throat burns like I’ve swallowed glass. “Why did you do this to me?”
His face twists, his mouth opening—but I don’t hear whatever lie he’s about to tell. Because it doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters.
Eli—the man who made me feel safe, who whispered, “Sweet dreams, Fangirl,” like it meant something—was never real.
