Chapter 14 The Shape Of Distance

• The silence stayed after the door closed, thick enough to press against her ribs.
• Ivy didn’t move. The scent of him clung to her skin, folded into the collar of his shirt, and soaked into the sheets that still brushed her legs. Her fingers rested gently against her stomach, as though touching the place where his hands had been could steady the uneven rhythm of her thoughts. The ache in her body was not only from what they had done. It had roots that twisted deeper, where his voice and his eyes had reached without permission.
• Outside, the city carried on. A faint honk echoed through the streets. The hum of a distant plane drifted through the glass. Life moved in its usual patterns, unaware that something fragile inside her had shifted. Ivy stayed curled on the bed, her knees drawn close, her breath caught somewhere between pain and longing.