Chapter 187

• Eric
• The night stretched, the air cold, heavy with the weight of everything I’d left behind. I stepped onto the street without a bag, no jacket, just my phone gripped so tightly in my hand it felt like it might shatter. My breath fogged in the cold as I walked, each step echoing louder than the last. The echo of my mother’s voice still rang in my head, every cruel syllable pressing like needles beneath my skin.
• I didn’t even remember pressing Dorian’s number. My fingers just moved, like instinct. The dial tone hummed in my ear, dragging out until his voice, soft and familiar, whispered through the speaker.