FORBIDDEN LOVE
"No more rules. Just — whatever this actually is."
I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell her exactly what I thought this actually was, the word sitting right behind my teeth, heavier and more certain than I'd expected it to feel. But something held me back — the same instinct that had kept me quiet for weeks before Camille, before the company, before any of it — some old caution that said naming it too soon might be its own kind of rule, just dressed up as honesty.
My phone buzzed on the counter. An unknown number, not the one I'd saved for Lily's old threatening text, something new entirely.