The oak tree near the river had always been Abigail's sanctuary. A place where the world felt quieter and steadier and easier to bear. Today it felt like none of those things. The tree stretched its branches overhead like a giant's hand frozen mid-reach, leaves rustling softly whenever the wind slipped between them. Their shadows shifted across the ground in gentle, broken patterns, almost rhythmic, almost soothing.
Almost.
Abigail sat with her back pressed against the rough bark, knees bent, fingers curled in the grass. The ground was cool beneath her, damp from the morning dew that still clung stubbornly in small droplets. She let the blades run through her fingers, soft and slightly warm where the sun reached them, but even that simple feeling did nothing to settle the storm flipping over inside her chest.
She tipped her head back until it touched the trunk. The bark was hard and uneven beneath her skull, grounding in a way she needed but hated needing. Across from her, the river pushed past the bank in steady ripples, the sunlight making the surface shimmer like a sheet of broken glass. The sound usually helped. The rushing water, the whisper of leaves, the occasional call of a bird gliding overhead. All of it normally blended into a calming pulse that slowed her thoughts.
Today it only made the silence in her own mind louder.
Her breaths came unevenly, each one shaky in a way she would never show to anyone. Not even her sisters. Especially not them.
The triplets had been the talk of the school all week. Whispers trailing behind them in hallways, eyes following them longer than necessary, people nudging friends and muttering the same tired things about wolves and bloodlines. Abigail barely noticed anymore. Her last name carried that weight everywhere they went, and she had learned to move through it the way one moves through cold air. You feel it, but you don't react to it.
She could ignore the noise. She always had.
But she couldn't ignore him. And that was the problem.
The thought hit before she could stop it, and her jaw tightened. She shoved it away and picked at a patch of grass by her shoe, ripping it up and tossing the pieces aside. The blades scattered messily, a little too reflective of how her brain felt.
Why did thinking about him hurt?
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe normally. Tried to let the wind cool the heat stirring under her skin. Tried to focus on anything except the memory that had been clawing its way into her thoughts ever since that night.
She remembered the way the air had felt thick and charged. She remembered the scent of him, warm and clean with something faintly sweet that lingered in her senses long after it should have. She remembered the way her heartbeat had stuttered in a strange, reckless rhythm when she touched him. And she remembered how her mind, usually so sharp and steady, had turned into something soft and foolish. That night, in his bed.
And she hated it.
Her fingers dug into the earth.
The moment had been planned, at least on her part. Every motion intentional, every decision lined up with cold, unshakable logic. It should have been simple. It should have been as easy as breathing. She had followed the plan. She had done what she needed to do. She had executed everything the way she was supposed to. Well... almost.
Yet somewhere in the middle of it, something had gone wrong. Something had slipped. Something inside her had cracked open, just a little, just enough to let something warm and terrifying through.
Something she could not close anymore.
And then he stopped.
Not harshly. Not fearfully. Not angrily.
Gently.
She could still feel the softness of his hands when he had pulled away. The steadiness in his voice when he spoke. The honesty. He had looked at her like she was something fragile, not something dangerous. She had never wanted that. Had never asked for that. Had never needed that.
So why did it matter now?
Her stomach twisted, and her breath caught in her throat.
She wished she hated him. Life would be so much cleaner, so much easier, if she could just hate him. If she could look at him and feel nothing but annoyance or irritation or cold indifference. If she could classify him as an obstacle or a tool or anything other than what he had accidentally become.
Her eyes opened again, and the river blurred for a moment before sharpening back into focus.
She replayed every moment since that night. Every time he had tried to talk to her. Every hesitant glance he had thrown her way in the hall. Every stilted conversation he attempted. She had avoided him each time. She told herself it was strategy. Control. Necessity. Distance kept the plan clean, kept her head clear, kept her from slipping any further into emotions she could not afford.
But that wasn't the whole truth.
She could still hear him saying her name softly. Not with pity, not with fear, but with something she did not know how to accept.
Why did he sound like that?
Why did she care?
Why did she care enough that seeing him with Luna earlier in the week had made heat flare through her chest so fiercely she almost snapped at her own sister?
The jealousy had been immediate and ugly and irrational. She knew this. She recognized it even as she felt it. She despised herself for it. She despised the way her stomach clenched whenever he smiled at someone else. She despised the way her pulse jumped when she noticed him laughing with Luna near the lockers. She despised the voice in her head whispering that maybe Luna was better for him. kinder. easier.
And she despised even more the sting that came with that thought.
Her hands came to her face, fingernails digging into her palms as she pressed them over her eyes.
What is wrong with me.
The thought did not sound like her. It did not fit her. She never asked herself questions like that. She never doubted her own steadiness. She never let emotions wedge themselves between logic and purpose.
But now they were everywhere.
A war zone behind her ribs.
Her mission demanded clarity. Focus. Discipline. She needed to stay detached, to stay level, to keep her mind sharp. But every time she remembered the warmth in Adam's voice, the steadiness in his eyes, the gentleness he showed when he had every reason not to, her chest tightened until she wanted to scream.
She needed to push him away. She needed to distance herself before she slipped any further into this mess of feelings she had no business having. She needed to find a reason to get angry. A reason to cut him off. A reason to despise him.
Any reason.
But the reasons would not come. And every time she tried to force one, all she found were memories of the way he had looked at her, or the way his voice softened when he spoke her name, or the way he had not treated her with the coldness she probably deserved.
It made her angry.
At him.
At herself.
Mostly at herself.
She pressed her forehead to her knees, teeth clenched.
Why now. Why him. Why this.
The wind picked up, tugging gently at her hair. The leaves overhead rustled in lazy circles, scattering small patches of sunlight across her arms. Somewhere across the field, students' voices drifted through the air in scattered fragments, too distant to make sense. The river gushed softly beside her, indifferent to the chaos spiraling in her head.
She sat like that for a long time. Long enough for the sun to shift and warm one side of her face. Long enough for her legs to start tingling. Long enough for her throat to tighten with that awful, quiet ache she refused to let become tears.
She was fine. She was always fine.
But she was not fine today.
Her fingers curled tighter around her knees. The bark of the oak tree pressed into her back again, grounding her. Or trying to. Nothing worked the way it usually did. Not the river. Not the wind. Not the tree.
Not even herself.
She hated this.
She hated the confusion. She hated the softness she kept finding inside herself. She hated that she felt anything at all when it came to him. She hated the jealousy. She hated the warmth. She hated the hesitation. She hated the self she became whenever he was involved.
She hated that she could not control it.
She hated that she wanted to.
She hated that part of her did not want to.
Her breath hitched at that last thought, and she forcibly shoved it away, grinding her teeth.
No. No, she could not think like that. She would not think like that.
She would regain control.
She had to.
The sound of footsteps on grass made her eyes open instantly.
Slow. Steady. Familiar.
Her pulse jumped so sharply she felt it in her throat.
The footsteps drew closer, soft but unmistakable. She knew that pace. She knew that rhythm. Even without looking, her senses recognized him as easily as they recognized the changing wind.
Her heart beat once. Hard.
Then again. Harder.
She did not want him here. She did not want him close. She did not want him in the middle of this storm she could not even name.
But she did not move.
She did not breathe.
She did not look away from the river even as the shadow fell across the grass near her feet.
She heard him inhale softly, like he was trying to gather courage.
Then the footsteps stopped.
Right beside her.
Her fingers clenched in the grass, her pulse thundering in her ears. The river kept rushing, the birds kept singing, the wind kept moving through the leaves, but Abigail felt none of it.
All she felt was the weight of his presence settling into the quiet space beside the oak tree.
And she could not run.
Not from him.
Not from herself.
Not this time.