Guilt Looks Like This

CHAPTER SIX

POV: Zara

She woke up in his bed.

Not tangled. Not dramatic. Just…. there. His arm loose around her waist, her back against his chest, both of them still fully clothed like that made it better. Like the hoodie and the sweatpants were some kind of defence against what had already happened.

They weren’t.

She lay there and didn’t move and listened to him breathe and thought about Ryan.

Ryan who texted good morning every single day without fail. Ryan who remembered she hated mushrooms and picked them out of things before she even noticed. Ryan who had never once given her a reason not to trust him.

Her eyes burned.

She didn’t cry. She pressed her lips together and stared at the wall and felt the weight of Damon’s arm and the warmth of him at her back and hated herself quietly and thoroughly.

She needed to get up.

She didn’t move.

He woke up slowly. She felt it, the shift in his breathing, the slight tension that moved through him the second consciousness hit and he remembered where he was and who was next to him.

His arm didn’t move.

Neither did she.

“Zara.”

“Don’t.” Her voice came out rough. “Just. Give me a minute.”

He went quiet. Outside the window the sky was white and still and the snow sat heavy and unbothered on everything, covering the world in something that looked like peace and wasn’t.

She sat up. Swung her legs over the side of the bed. Sat there with her back to him and her hands in her lap.

“Nothing happened,” she said. To herself as much as him.

“I know.”

“We just slept.”

“Zara.” Gentle. “I know.”

She stood up. Didn’t turn around. “I’m going to shower. Then I’m making breakfast and we’re going to be normal today.”

A pause behind her. “Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you mean it.”

She finally turned. He was sitting up, hair a mess, watching her with an expression that was so carefully neutral it hurt to look at. Like he was working very hard at giving her exactly what she asked for.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she said.

“Like what.”

“Like you feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t feel sorry for you.”

“Then what.”

He held her gaze. “Like I wish things were different.”

She left before he could see what that did to her face.

The shower was too hot. She stood under it until her skin went pink and her thoughts went quiet and then a little longer because going back out there meant facing the day and the day meant Ryan calling and Marcus texting and real life pushing its way back in through every crack.

She got out. Got dressed. Looked at herself in the mirror for a long time.

Same face. Same eyes. Same Zara.

Somehow she’d expected to look different.

He was already in the kitchen. Coffee made, bread in the toaster, moving around the space with that easy economy of movement that she’d catalogued without meaning to over years of watching him in peripheral.

He didn’t say anything when she came in. Just poured a second mug and pushed it across the counter.

She took it. Sat down.

“Ryan’s going to call today,” she said.

“Probably.”

“I don’t know what to tell him.”

“The truth. Nothing happened.”

She looked up. “You know that’s not entirely true.”

He met her eyes. Held them. “What do you want me to say, Zara?”

“I don’t know. Nothing.” She wrapped both hands around the mug. “I just need to think.”

The toaster popped. He plated the toast, put it between them, sat down across from her. They ate in silence and it wasn’t uncomfortable exactly but it wasn’t the easy quiet from yesterday either. It had weight to it now. Texture.

Everything did.

Ryan called at half ten.

She stepped into Marcus’s room to take it. Closed the door. Sat on the edge of the bed.

“Hey.” His voice warm and familiar and completely unaware. “Roads are looking better. Might be able to get up there tonight.”

“Oh.” Her heart lurched. “Yeah?”

“Babe, is something wrong”

“No no, I just miss you”

“I miss you too. This weekend without you has been—” he laughed a little. “Anyway. How are you? How’s it been?”

She closed her eyes. “Fine. Quiet. Lots of snow.”

“You and Damon surviving each other?”

The way he said it. Easy. Unbothered. Total trust.

She felt sick.

“Yeah,” she said. “He cooked. I beat him at cards.”

Ryan laughed. “Poor guy. Okay, let me check the roads and I’ll text you. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

She sat with the phone in her lap for a long time after he hung up.

Love you too.

She’d said it automatically. The way you say things you’ve said a thousand times. But sitting there in her brother’s room with Damon twelve feet away in the kitchen she turned the words over in her mouth and tried to find where they came from and they were real, she did love Ryan, but they sat differently than they used to and she didn’t know what to do with that.

She didn’t know what to do with any of this.

She came back to the kitchen. Damon looked up from his phone, read her face in one second flat.

“He’s coming tonight,” she said.

Something moved through Damon’s expression. Brief and controlled and gone before she could name it.

“Good,” he said.

“Is it.”

“Zara—”

“I’m asking. Is it good.”

He set his phone down. Looked at her straight. “Yes. It’s good. He should come. You should be with him. That’s how this is supposed to go.”

“Right.” She nodded. “And Camille?”

“I’ll call her. Ask her to come up.”

“Great.” Her voice came out flatter than she meant it. “Perfect. Everything back to normal.”

“That’s what you said you wanted.”

“I know what I said.”

“So why are you angry?”

“I’m not angry.”

“You’re something.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Pressed her fingers to her forehead.

“I held your hand,” she said quietly. “In the dark. I came to your room and I held your hand and you kissed my knuckles and we slept in the same bed and now we’re standing here talking about our partners coming and acting like none of that—” she stopped. Exhaled. “I just need a second to catch up. That’s all.”

He was quiet. Then he stood up, slowly, and came around the counter, and stopped in front of her. Close but not touching.

“Take the second,” he said. Low. “I’ll be here.”

She looked up at him. At his face. At the jaw and the dark eyes and the thing he carried behind them that she’d never been allowed close enough to see before this weekend.

“This is so messed up,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he said. “It really is.”

Her phone buzzed on the counter. Ryan: Roads look clear, leaving in an hour, see you soon babe.

She picked it up. Read it. Put it face down.

Damon hadn’t moved.

“You should call Camille,” she said.

“I will.”

“Now, Damon.”

He held her gaze for one long moment. Then he picked up his phone and walked to the living room and she stood alone in the kitchen and listened to his voice go low and warm in the other room — “hey you, yeah I’m good, can you come up?” and she turned to the window and watched the snow and felt something close up inside her chest like a fist.

This was what guilt looked like.

Not dramatic. Not loud.

Just this. Standing in a kitchen. Listening to him talk to someone else. Feeling every single thing you’re not supposed to feel and smiling anyway when your boyfriend’s name lights up your screen.

Her phone buzzed again.

Unknown number.

One word this time.

“Tick”.