Kenzie Love Pov -

But inside my chest, right now, it doesn’t feel like a safe harbor. It feels like a shipwreck.

I grab my phone, shove it into my back pocket, and open the bathroom door. The hallway smells like cheap vanilla candles and expensive regret. I walk toward the stairs, toward the noise, toward E. I don’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t know if I’ll say anything at all. kenzie love pov

Too confrontational. Delete. “Are you okay? You seemed… distracted.” Too passive. Delete. “I think I’m in love with you and it’s making me stupid.” But inside my chest, right now, it doesn’t

My thumb hovers. My heart hammers. I can hear my own pulse, loud and uneven. The hallway smells like cheap vanilla candles and

I reread the text I haven’t sent: “Hey. We need to talk about what I saw tonight.”

From downstairs, I hear E’s laugh. That specific laugh—the one they only do when they’re a little drunk, a little reckless. The one that used to be just for me.

“You’re Kenzie Love,” I whisper to myself. “You don’t beg. You don’t chase. You feel things, but you don’t let them drown you.”