Chapter 5

Ethan stood in front of me, his expression shifting slowly from shock to anger.

He clearly hadn't taken "breaking up" as a real decision. He treated it as something I'd said in anger to force him into backing down.

"Nora, you're not thinking straight right now." He stared at the backpack on my shoulder. "Put your things down first. We can talk when you've calmed down."

"There's nothing to talk about."

I walked toward the door.

Ethan suddenly reached out and snatched the medication case and EpiPen from my hand.

I froze. "Give those back."

"Stop trying to scare me with this." He clutched the medication case, his face dark. "You already pulled the can't-breathe act once at the airport. I know you have asthma, but you don't have an attack every time you get emotional. Stay here and rest. When you've thought things through, I'll give you the medication."

I reached for it. He stepped back quickly, opened the door, and walked out.

"Ethan!"

The door slammed shut in my face.

Then came the sound of a key sliding into the lock from the outside.

This apartment was in a converted old townhouse, and the door still had an old-fashioned double-sided key lock. Even from the inside, you needed a key to open it. My spare key had just been placed back in the brass tray in the entryway, and he'd taken it with him on his way out.

The deadbolt clicked into place.

"You're not going anywhere today." Ethan's voice came through the door with a finality that left no room for argument. "I'm not trying to hurt you. I just can't watch you run around in this state. When you've calmed down, I'll come back for you."

I pounded on the door. "Give me my medication! Ethan, I'm not trying to scare you!"

Silence on the other side.

Then he said, "Stop with the act."

After that, footsteps growing fainter until they were gone.

I stood behind the door, listening as the sound disappeared entirely, my hands and legs trembling beyond my control.

I rushed to the doorknob and twisted. The door didn't budge. I ran to the kitchen to look for a spare key. The drawer was empty. The window could only push outward a narrow crack, and the bedroom was on the fourth floor. There was no way out from there.

The cramped apartment had become a sealed cage.

My breathing began to tighten. My chest felt like a boulder had been dropped on it. Every inhale came with a tearing pain, and a thin whistling sound rose from my throat.

I slid down against the door to the floor, shaking as I pulled out my phone and called Ethan.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

No answer.

I clenched my teeth and opened Sophie's message thread. "Tell Ethan to open the door. I don't have my medication. He took my emergency medication."

A minute later, Sophie replied.

"Nora, stop with the act. Ethan is exhausted too."

"He just wants you to stay home and think about what you've done. Why do you always have to push him this far?"

I stared at the screen, my vision starting to blur.

At the same time, a message from Ethan popped up in the mutual friends' group chat. Someone asked if they were still going to Bath. His reply was casual.

"We'll go a bit later. Nora's been getting more and more difficult. I told her to stay home and think about things for a few hours."

"We've spoiled her rotten. She thinks everyone should cater to her. Once she figures out who actually treats her well, she'll settle down."

That line, "think about things for a few hours," was the last straw.

I gasped for air, my vision going black in waves. My limbs were numb, my heart slamming so fast it felt ready to burst through my chest. Yet in my ears, I kept hearing what Ethan had once said as he held my hand in the emergency room.

Whenever you're scared, come find me. I won't leave you alone.

Now, the person who had locked me in and taken my medication was also him.

I couldn't die here.

I braced myself against the wall and staggered to my feet, lurching toward the narrow back balcony. The balcony's sliding door had an old safety latch on the outside that Ethan had locked that morning when he'd hung the laundry out to dry. He'd taken that key too.

I grabbed a metal tripod from the corner and swung it at the glass door with everything I had.

The first hit left only a few cracks.

The second sent a muffled shudder through the glass, fractures spreading like a spiderweb.

The third time, I could barely hold onto the tripod, but I gritted my teeth and brought it down again.

A crash.

The glass shattered completely, shards flying everywhere, slicing my arms and the side of my face. I didn't stop to think about the pain. I kept smashing away the jagged pieces around the opening until the gap was large enough for me to lean out and call for help.

The building manager in the courtyard below heard the noise and looked up to see me, covered in blood, hunched over the broken glass. He immediately called emergency services and the police.

About ten minutes later, firefighters and the building manager opened the door from the outside. Paramedics gave me oxygen, then used a bronchodilator in the ambulance to pull my dropping blood oxygen levels back up.

In the emergency room, a doctor stitched up the wound on my arm. Seven stitches.

When the anesthetic needle went in, I didn't feel the pain.

I just held on tight to the backpack in my arms, making sure the portable hard drive was still there, making sure the remaining SD cards hadn't been lost again.

The attending physician, on hearing that my emergency medication had been taken from me and that I'd been locked in, followed hospital protocol and notified the police.

The officer taking my statement at the bedside asked if I wished to file formal charges for unlawful confinement and endangering my health.

I was silent for a long time. Finally, I nodded.

It wasn't for revenge.

I simply understood, at last, that if I kept covering for them, they would always believe they had just been joking.

Two hours later, Ethan returned to the apartment.

He must have seen the shattered glass all over the floor and the bloodstains. He started frantically searching for me in the group chat.

"Nora, why is there blood on the floor?"

"Where are you? Answer the phone!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I just wanted you to calm down. I didn't know you'd actually have an attack."

Sophie also sent a string of voice messages. "Nora, where did you go? I thought he was just trying to scare you. I really didn't know it would turn out like this. Please don't scare us. Just say something, okay?"

I looked at the messages piling up and felt a strange calm.

No anger, no grievance. Only a barren kind of relief, the kind that comes after something has finally, completely ended.

With the hand that hadn't been stitched, I typed two final messages in the mutual friends' group chat.

"The moment you locked me in that room and took my emergency medication, every kindness you ever showed me was paid back in full."

"From now on, I owe you nothing. We will never see each other again."

After sending, I left the group chat and blocked Ethan, Sophie, and every mutual friend who had piled on.

The doctor recommended I stay overnight for observation because my heart rate was still unstable.

I refused.

I completed the discharge paperwork, finished giving my statement at the police station, and filed for a temporary restraining order. At three in the morning, I sat in the airport departure hall and rebooked the earliest flight to Inverness.

This time, I didn't look back.