~TESSA'S POV~
Silence pressed in on me after the door slammed shut.
Not the peaceful kind. The kind that crept into your ears and refused to leave. The kind that made every stray thought echo until it felt too loud to bear. It wrapped itself around me, thick and suffocating, settling into my chest like a weight I couldn't push off.
As usual, he left me suspended in it.
Dangling. Waiting. Guessing.
He always did.
I counted my breaths. One. Two. Three. Each inhale scraped against my ribs; each exhale trembled slightly, betraying me. My chest rose and fell unevenly at first, panic threatening to rear its head, sharp and insistent. I clenched my jaw and forced it down. Panic would not help me here. Panic never did. It only made things worse. It always had.
"Think," I whispered to myself.
The word sounded wrong the moment it left my lips, too loud, too exposed. It bounced off the walls and came back to me thinner, almost mocking. "Just think."
