The cardboard box weighs nothing compared to what I’m carrying inside my chest.

I set it down on the unfamiliar floor, surveying this room that’s supposed to be mine. Neutral territory, my father called it. A fresh start. The walls are painted a careful beige that commits to nothing.

Two weeks ago, I stood in a bridesmaid dress watching my father cry happy tears for another woman. Catherine glowed in ivory. I found it beautiful, and I hated myself for that betrayal.

Now I’m here. In this house that holds no memories of my mother.

Our old house still had her everywhere—the kitchen where she taught me French toast, the garden where we planted tulips, the reading nook where her perfume lingered. Leaving felt like closing a door she could never walk through again.

But I’m eighteen now. Adults let go. Adults move forward. Adults don’t cling to ghosts.

I almost believe it.

Footsteps thunder up the stairs and Caleb drops another box just hard enough to make me wince.

“Careful,” I snapped.

His eyes travel over me slowly—messy ponytail, old t-shirt, the flush climbing my neck. His jaw tightens like my existence personally offends him.

“It’s just your crap,” he mutters, but his gaze lingers a beat too long before he looks away.

He’s been hauling boxes all afternoon with theatrical resentment because Catherine made him. His shirt reveals the sportsman’s forearms, clings to his broad shoulders and muscled back, darkened with sweat.

And I catch myself tracking a bead of moisture down his neck before I wrench my attention to the bookshelf.

“I’m taking a shower.” He pushes off the frame but doesn’t leave immediately, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a fraction of a second. “Try not to miss me too much.”

He disappears, and I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

This is what I am now, sharing walls with my worst school enemy. But there was a time before all that.

I was twelve, standing at the edge of Lake Tahoe, watching him skip stones across the water.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he’d said, and his voice hadn’t been cruel yet. “Here. Like this.”

His hand had guided mine, warm and patient.

I’d thought he was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.

That was the summer before middle school. Before his father started using him as a punching bag. Before something fundamental broke in Caleb and reformed sharp enough to cut anyone who got too close.

Stop. Stop romanticizing his trauma, you idiot.

I push the memory down where it belongs and a sudden thought strikes me.

Shit, my tampons.

I left them on the bathroom counter this morning. The pink box sits there in plain view, announcing my biology to the one person I’d rather die than share anything with.

I wait. Listen. Can’t hear any water running yet. If I’m fast enough…

But when I push through my bathroom door, he’s right there and my palm lands flat against bare skin, hot and solid.

His strong hand catches my waist to steady me, fingers pressing into the curve above my hip with a grip that feels almost possessive. Steam rises from the shower behind him, filling the small space with humid heat.

Neither of us moves.

His fingers flex against my waist, pulling me closer before he catches himself. The heat in his eyes hardens into familiar cruelty so fast it gives me whiplash.

“Wanted a preview of your new stepbrother, pervert?” His voice drips with mockery, but there’s a roughness underneath that wasn’t there before. “That’s fucked up even for you.”

“I just left something on the counter. Not everything is about you and your abs, asshole.”

His eyes sweep over me and I forget how to take a breath. “Keep telling yourself that.”

“Move.” I try to step around him, but he shifts to block my path.

His arm braces against the doorframe, caging me between the sink and his body. “I’m not done talking.”

“Well, I’m done listening.”

When I duck under his arm, his hand shoots out and catches my elbow, pulling me back to face him. The grip isn’t painful, but it’s firm enough that I can’t pull free without a struggle.

“Let go of me, Caleb.”

“Or what?” He steps closer, using every inch of his height to loom over me. “Going to scream? Run to Daddy?”

I ignore him, trying to reach past him for the pink box, but my hand is shaking.

The exhaustion of the move. The grief of leaving our old house. The weight of standing in a bathroom that doesn’t smell like my mother’s lavender soap—it all crashes into me at once.

My vision blurs.

Don’t cry. Not here. Not in front of him.

He gets so angry, and when he’s angry he gets so close. Like…

“You heard me.” My heart slams against my ribs, but I don’t back down. “You’re just like him, like Simon. A bully who only feels big when he’s making someone else feel small.”

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