Then he swallows and backs up a step.
“I didn’t know,” he mutters, though that does not make it better, because not knowing is not an excuse for barging into someone else’s room.
“Out,” I snap again, my voice shaking now with fury rather than shock, “get out right now.”
He does not argue, which might be the only smart choice he has made since arriving, and he turns abruptly and pulls the door shut behind him with a sharp click that echoes through the room like punctuation.
The silence that follows is thick and charged, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat as adrenaline burns through me in uneven waves. Atticus exhales slowly behind me, his chest rising and falling in a deliberate way that tells me he is forcing himself to stay calm, and his hand comes up to brush gentl
