Chapter 5 Chapter 5

Torin looked down at his boots, his shoulders slumping under his heavy denim vest. Then he braced his spine and looked back up, his jaw squaring. His eyes met mine straight on. For the very first time since this nightmare started, I saw no defense lingering in his expression, no hidden explanation, and no logical justification. There was only regret…a terrible, endless, consuming regret that flattened the lines of his mouth.

My throat tightened until it ached, my collar suddenly choking me. A fresh wave of panic hit my chest cavity because, suddenly, I didn't know which answer would hurt more. A yes, or a no.

Torin opened his mouth, his chest rising beneath his t-shirt as he prepared to speak. The pause lasted less than a second, but it still felt far too long against the quiet of the room. And in that agonizing moment, before he could utter a single syllable, I realized one thing with absolute, terrifying certainty: whatever answer came out of his mouth next wasn't going to make any of this better.

"Yes," he said, the word landing softly.

It still felt like getting punched directly in the ribs. I stared flatly at his face, my fingers locking around my duffel bag. The room seemed to tilt slightly beneath my boots, not enough to throw me off balance, but just enough to make me wonder if I was standing on solid ground anymore.

Torin didn't look away from my stare, didn't soften the blow of the syllable, and didn't try to take it back. The honesty of the word should have mattered to my guard. Instead, all I could think about was every single day that had come after the lie.

My fingers tightened around the duffel straps until the rough canvas bit into my palms. "When?" I asked, the question coming out completely hollow.

Torin exhaled a slow breath through his nose, his shoulders dropping an inch. The sound filled the small space between us. "When Reif was ready," he replied.

I blinked once, then again, my jaw locking. The answer settled over my skin, and for a second I honestly couldn't figure out why the timeline hurt so much. Then it hit my chest cavity. It was because it wasn't an actual answer, not info rmationI could use. It was merely another delay, another tomorrow, another someday, and another moment pushed farther down the road. It was the exact same thing everyone in this club had apparently been doing to my life for seven full months.

My gaze drifted toward the framed photograph sitting on the wooden dresser. The barbecue. The bright smiles. The loud laughter. The normalcy. I remembered that exact day. I remembered Ginger threatening to beat Rook with a plastic spatula near the grill. I remembered Torin stealing a fry from my plate when he thought I wasn't looking, his lips curling. I remembered laughing so hard my stomach hurt. And now all I could think was: Did Reif already know who he was then?

My stomach twisted into a hard knot. I snapped my eyes away from the picture, my head shaking. The bedroom suddenly felt too warm, too crowded, and too full of phantoms.

"When was that supposed to happen, Torin?" I asked quietly, my voice dropping.

Torin's jaw tightened, the cording muscle hard beneath his stubble. "When he felt ready," he muttered.

I let out a short laugh, the sound scraping my throat raw.

The expression on Torin's face changed immediately, his brow cording. It wasn't because I was laughing at him, but because he knew exactly what kind of sound it was, the broken kind that usually came right before the tears hit.

I shook my head slowly, trying to force the answer to fit the reality, trying to understand the timeline, and completely failing. "So what?" my voice cracked against the paneling. "You were all just standing around waiting?"

The total silence of the room answered for him.

I looked toward the bed, tracking the tangled blankets, the flat pillows, and the exact place where we'd slept together every single night for months. The physical memories came too fast, swarming my brain: movie nights on the couch, morning coffee shared on the porch, late-night conversations in the dark, his hand reaching for my knuckles under restaurant tables, the way he'd kiss my forehead when he thought I was overthinking a club problem, and the way he'd pull my hip closer to his chest in his sleep. They were tiny moments, hundreds of them, thousands.

Suddenly every single memory seemed to have another version hidden beneath the surface, one where his chest rose and he already knew the truth, one where everybody in the clubhouse already knew the truth. The realization hollowed something out inside my gut, leaving me cold.

I pressed my lips tightly together to stop a sob, the burning pressure behind my eyes turning hot. "Did you ever come close?" I asked, the question slipping out before I could put up a wall.

Torin frowned slightly, his shoulders squaring. "To what?" he asked, his voice dropping.

"To telling me," I whispered.

The room went completely silent again, the air tightening between us. A motorcycle roared somewhere beyond the clubhouse gates, the deep rattle of the exhaust drifting through the open window pane before fading into the distance. Neither of us moved an inch.

I watched his face, tracking the hard line of his jaw. I watched the true answer arrive in his eyes before the words ever hit his tongue, and suddenly I knew. There had been moments, dozens of them, maybe hundreds of them, moments when he almost said the words, moments when he thought about breaking the rule, and moments when the truth sat flat on the tip of his tongue. And every single time the choice arrived...he chose silence.

The realization hurt more than if he'd said a flat no. Because a no would have been simple to my guard. A yes meant he had looked directly at my face over and over again and decided: Not today.

My vision blurred, the contours of his jacket shaking. I looked down at the floorboards before he could see the shift in my eyes. A tear slipped free anyway, hot against my cheek, and landed on the canvas duffel strap wrapped around my knuckles, darkening the green fabric into a black dot.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke a single word, the wind rustling the curtains. Then quietly, so quietly I almost missed the sound of it, Torin said my name. He didn't deliver it the way he usually did, it wasn't a soothing register, it wasn't calming, and he wasn't trying to fix the damage. He just stated my name, the syllables coming out like it physically hurt his lungs to say the word.