ZARA'S POV
It always started the same way — with heat.
Not the soft, sleepy kind that made you feel safe. Not the kind that wrapped itself around you like a blanket, gentle and harmless.
No. This was something else entirely.
Sharp. Crawling. Alive.
Like it had a will of its own.
I couldn’t move. My body was frozen in place, locked down by something I couldn’t see — like the air itself had thickened into chains, heavy and electric, pressing into my chest. I opened my mouth to scream, to say anything, but the sound died in my throat. My voice didn’t exist here.
Then came the hands.
They weren’t cold. They weren’t even violent. But they were wrong — unfamiliar, unwelcome, a violation without pain. They moved like they knew me. Like they had some right to be there. My skin reacted instantly — every nerve lit up, every muscle tense. I tried to push back, to kick or shove or claw my way free, but my limbs barely responded. It was like trying to move through syrup, slow and disconnected, like I was trapped in someone else’s dream.
There was no face. No shape I could name. Just the suffocating sense of a presence — something inches from me, breathing softly against my neck. Watching. Waiting.
And then the voice. Low, rough, and so close it felt like it had been pressed directly into my skin:
“You’re not ready.”
That was it.
No explanation. No threat. Just those quiet words that clung to me like smoke.
Not ready for what?
I didn’t get the chance to ask.
Because I woke up.
Hard.
My body shot upright like I’d been yanked out of the dream by force. My chest heaved, lungs dragging in air that felt too thick. For a moment, I didn’t recognize the world around me — the pale ceiling of my dorm room, the weak orange light bleeding through the curtain, the hum of the mini fridge in the kitchen. Everything felt too sharp. Too loud. Too real.
The blanket was bunched up around my waist, one leg tangled tightly in the sheets. My oversized sleep shirt clung to my skin, soaked through with sweat.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand, trying to steady my breathing. My fingers were shaking.
Just a dream, I told myself.
But my heart wasn’t buying it.
I’d had nightmares before — messy, irrational, chaotic things that faded the second I opened my eyes. But this? This one clung to me like it didn’t want to let go. Like it had followed me back.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, planting my feet on the cold floor. It should have grounded me. It didn’t. My skin still buzzed with leftover adrenaline, and for some reason, my neck still burned.
I reached for my water bottle out of habit — and then I saw it.
Four faint scratches trailed across the wooden floor just beneath the edge of my bed. Not deep. Not fresh. But I knew my room. I’d vacuumed last night. I would’ve noticed something like that.
I stared at them for a long moment.
Maybe I kicked something in my sleep. Maybe I dragged my chair too hard last week and forgot. Maybe — just maybe — I was spiraling again.
I did that sometimes.
My therapist called it trauma residue. Fight-or-flight gone haywire. My brain taking the worst-case scenario and dressing it up in nightmare logic until it felt real enough to hurt.
But this didn’t feel like that.
It wasn’t violent. It wasn’t terrifying. It didn’t even feel like a warning.
It just felt... wrong.
And I couldn’t stop touching the back of my neck.
It was hot to the touch — not a fever, just an odd flush, like heat left behind by a whisper I couldn’t quite remember.
I blinked at the alarm clock.
7:00 a.m.
Panic slid into my chest like ice water.
My bed looked like a war zone — a battlefield of crumpled note paper, highlighters, and that damn cue card I’d rewritten five times. The presentation. The one I’d stayed up all night memorizing for my 8 a.m. class. The one that counted for thirty percent.
Shit.
I flung the covers off in one frantic motion, the papers scattering to the floor like dying leaves, and bolted for the hallway. But the second I stepped out of my room, I stopped cold.
The apartment reeked. Beer. Sweat. Some mix of cheap cologne and someone else’s bad decisions.
Bottles littered every surface — the countertops, the floor, the coffee table. One rolled against my foot with a dull clink, like even the universe was mocking me now.
The day I was going to kill her. God forbid.
“Emma!” I snapped, storming into the kitchen and snatching bottles two at a time, dropping them into Dustin — our dented silver trash can, the one she insisted on naming because trash deserved dignity.
I didn’t even drink.
Not even on my birthday.
But I was always the one cleaning up the mess. Always the one walking barefoot over bottle caps and crushed egos.
“Emma!” I yelled again, louder this time, my voice echoing off the walls.
She finally emerged from her bedroom, blinking like the light offended her, barefoot and half-dressed — in someone else’s shirt, of course. Oversized, faded, sliding off one shoulder in that casual, post-sex, I-don’t-give-a-shit kind of way.
Her hair was a tangled mess, makeup smudged around her eyes like shadows. She looked like she’d barely survived the night — and honestly, she probably hadn’t.
“What?” she groaned, rubbing her temples with one hand, eyes squinting in the morning light like it physically hurt to exist.
I stared at her.
Dead.
Not just annoyed — bone-tired. Soul-deep. Ready to scream or cry or throw the nearest empty bottle through the goddamn window.
“There’s glass on the floor,” I said, flatly. “Again.”
She just blinked at me, like my words were too complicated for her hangover to translate.
She blinked at me, slow and dumb, like my words were too complex for her hangover to decode.
“Sorry, Mom… geez,” she muttered, rolling her eyes as she crouched to pick up a few shards. “You really need to loosen up, Zara. At this rate, you’re gonna die of old age.”
Emma was a pain in my ass. My roommate. Second-year law student. You’d think that meant something — like she had her life together. But between the ashtrays, the mystery stains, and the rotation of guys who treated this place like a frat house, it was clear who the adult was here.
Me.
And God, sometimes I wanted to leave. Just pack up and run. But I couldn’t — not when this was the closest dorm to campus, just ten minutes from lectures. And not when expenses were already bleeding me dry. The coffee shop job barely kept me above water. Without Emma splitting the cost, I’d be screwed.
I bent down, picked up a shattered glass that had been kicked under the table. The rim was stained with lipstick. Red. Emma’s shade.
Of course.
“Whose shirt is that?” I asked, not because I cared — just to hear her lie.
She squinted down at herself, like she hadn’t noticed. “I don’t know. Max, maybe. Or Dean?” She made a vague gesture, like names were pebbles she could toss around without consequence. “It’s clean.”
“Right. Because that’s what matters. Hygiene.”
She rolled her eyes and slumped against the counter like she was about to faint. “Why are you being so dramatic?”
I brushed past her, grabbed the coffee mug she left half full from yesterday, and dumped the cold sludge into the sink.
“You’re welcome, by the way. For cleaning your disaster. Again. On my presentation day.”
Her voice softened, almost guilty. “You have class?”
I stared at her. “No, Emma. I just prefer waking up early to take a shower.”
She winced, then shrugged, rubbing her forehead. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
Of course she didn’t. She never knew. Never asked.
Just took.
I grabbed my toiletry bag, already feeling the heat prickling in my scalp. My shirt clung to my back. I didn’t have time for this. I didn’t have time for her.
Emma’s story was simple — rich girl, good grades, too many shoes. Which, honestly, was the best part about living with her. The movie nights, the spontaneous shopping trips, those random “just us” dinner dates where she insisted on paying — she always had me covered. Rent, groceries, even tampons when I was broke and too proud to ask. She helped more than she ever had to, and never once rubbed it in.
Maybe that’s part of why I never really left — even when she drove me insane. For all her chaos, she felt like someone in this place that otherwise felt so damn empty.
Her parents were old-money strict. The kind of strict that smiled through their teeth and said things like, “Law will open doors for you,” while ignoring the way her eyes lit up whenever she talked about fashion. She wanted to design clothes — real, run-your-own-brand, red-carpet kind of dream. But they shut that down fast, and she said yes to law like a good little daughter.
And the crazy part? She was good at it. Top of her class, even with her all-nighters and hangovers and boys who forgot their shirts. I never understood how she did it — how she managed to live two lives without falling apart.
But maybe that was her rebellion.
And maybe this — this weird, fragile thing between us — was mine.
I walked in the bathroom. The tiles were still slick under my feet. I stepped around the puddles she never bothered to wipe up. Her towel was half-tucked, barely hanging on. Her perfume lingered in the steam — something floral and expensive that stuck in my throat like a lie.
She was already humming something out of tune in the kitchen, like we hadn’t just argued. Like there wasn’t glass on the floor five minutes ago.
I shut the bathroom door harder than I meant to.
Turned the tap.
Let the water run hot.
And tried to disappear for ten minutes.
Steam bloomed up the mirror before the glass even fogged. I peeled my shirt off with a wince — the fabric sticking to my back like regret — and kicked off the rest with practiced irritation. Everything felt too tight lately. My skin. My patience. This whole life I was supposed to be grateful for.
The water hit my shoulders like a slap. Hot. Too hot. But I didn’t move. I just stood there, hands braced against the wall, letting the heat sting.
This was the only place I could vanish. No noise. No Emma. No fake smiles. Just the sound of water and my thoughts, running wild.
I stared down at the tiles while it all spun.
Midterms. Rent. Tips that didn’t add up.The constant nightmares I been fighting for a month now. My mom asking if I’d "met any nice people yet." Emma’s parents coming to visit this weekend — and her asking me to hide the tequila bottles.
It was like drowning in inches. Not deep enough to kill you, just enough to keep you choking.
I let my head fall forward, water sliding down my spine. My fingers trembled a little. I told myself it was just the heat. That I was fine. That I was used to this.
Except I wasn’t. Not really.
I reached for the shampoo, eyes half-closed, letting the floral scent blur into something dull. Not even the lather could distract me.
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