KNOX’S POV
My jaw locks so tight something in my temple pops and my eyes burn with a heat that has nowhere to go because I haven’t cried since I was a child in this hallway and I’m not going to start now.
I’m NOT, I refuse to give this house the satisfaction of—
Choose to stay.
She couldn’t. She wrote the words and she couldn’t follow them.
She told me to stay whole and she broke herself instead, and I’ve spent my entire life proving that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree because what did I do this morning?
What did I do when the pain got bad enough, when Ember’s words hit the places that were already bleeding, when the room closed in and the only options were stay and feel it or run and numb it?
I ran. I said “wouldn’t think of it” and I walked out and I flew to Switzerland.
