Elise's voice was somewhere on the edge of my hearing, her hand on my shoulder, soft and warm. She was saying something—maybe "Are you okay?" maybe "What's wrong?"—but the words couldn't land. They slid right off me like rain on glass.
Because my phone was a black hole in my hand.
The video had ended. My thumb hovered over the screen, trembling, and before I could stop myself, I hit play again.
Adrien.
Clara.
Red dress.
His tie undone.
Her hands on him.
His voice—his voice—rasping something that sounded like my name, but not to me.
My throat closed. I couldn't breathe. It felt like someone had reached into my chest and twisted it.
My thumb trembled on the glass, the faint glow of the phone pulsing like a heartbeat. Every instinct screamed for me to smash the phone, to rip the screen from my hands and fling it into the street but I couldn't bring myself to do it.
"No," I whispered. The sound barely left my throat. "No… this isn't real. Adrien wouldn't—he wouldn't—"
