Chapter 78 Seventy Eight

• ARIEL’S POV
• The walls felt too close, too quiet. My heart was pounding harder and faster in my chest, every nerve on edge. I’d been going over it in my head a hundred times since Bryan had pulled that stunt. It was a mistake. That was the only word I had for it. A mistake. One I didn’t want, didn’t ask for, didn’t return — Bryan had been vulnerable, I’d been distracted, and then it was over before I’d even processed it. That’s what I would tell Ryan. That’s what I had to tell him.
• Except every second of his silence was suffocating me. He hadn’t touched me, hadn’t looked at me the same way. Was he angry? Suspicious? There was no way he could have found out already, she reasoned with herself, but a sharp, dark voice inside whispered: what if he did?