Chapter 60 Together or Not at All

Chapter 60 Together or Not at All
POV: Zara

I was already running when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

Mom's car wasn't in the driveway when I climbed back through my own window two minutes after I'd climbed out of it, my heart still hammering from what I'd just done, and I barely had my feet on the carpet before I heard Eli's car screech to a stop outside.

He didn't knock. He didn't wait. The front door banged open downstairs, and I heard him take the stairs two at a time, my name tearing out of him before he even reached the top.

"Zara!"

"I'm here," I called, my voice cracking. "I'm here, I'm okay, I'm right here."

He filled my doorway a second later, chest heaving, eyes wide and wild in a way I'd never seen on him before, and for one second neither of us moved. Then he crossed the room in three steps and pulled me into him so hard I lost my breath.

"Your window was open," he said into my hair, his voice shaking. "Naomi sent me a photo. Your room was empty. I thought"

"I went outside," I said, pulling back enough to look at him. "I saw someone. A shape, by the fence, right after the photo of my laptop came through. I didn't think. I just went after them."

His hands tightened on my arms. "Zara, you cannot do that. You cannot just run outside alone after someone who's already proven they're dangerous."

"I didn't catch them," I admitted, my voice small now that the adrenaline was draining out of me and leaving something colder behind. "Whoever it was was gone before I made it past the fence. But Eli, they were standing exactly where someone would stand to see straight into my window. They knew exactly where to look."

He didn't say anything right away. He just held onto my arms like he needed to make sure I was solid, real, actually standing in front of him and not another picture on a screen.

"I went to Jade's," he finally said. "I told her if the new post is still up tomorrow I'm taking everything to the school board. I meant it."

"And then Naomi's number sent you a picture of my empty window," I said quietly, putting it together. "Right after."

"Yeah."

We stood there in the silence that followed, both of us turning that over, both of us scared to say out loud what it might mean.

I sat down on the edge of my bed because my legs didn't feel steady enough to keep standing, and after a second he sat down next to me, close but not touching, like he was waiting for permission.

"I keep thinking about that night on the roof," I said, staring at my hands. "Before any of this. Before the video, before Naomi stopped answering, before strangers started taking pictures through my window. It felt so simple back then. You. Me. A secret nobody else needed to know."

"It was never going to stay simple," he said. "I think some part of me knew that the second I sat down next to you. I just didn't care."

I looked up at him. "I care now. I have to."

"I know."

"Naomi might be hurt because of this," I said, my voice breaking on the word hurt. "Because of us. Because some stranger out there decided the easiest way to punish me was to go through her first. I can't, I can't sit here and want this, want you, while she's still out there scared and not talking to me." I shook my head. "I can't do this if Naomi is hurt."

"I know," he said again, simpler this time, no argument in it at all.

That surprised me almost more than anything else that had happened in the last two days. I'd braced for him to push, to tell me it wasn't my fault, to talk me out of the guilt sitting like a stone in my chest. He didn't do any of that. He just agreed, as he'd already arrived at the same place on his own.

"So what happens to this?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, gesturing at the space between us, at every roof conversation and every almost-kiss and every cup of tea left outside a door. "What happens to us, while all of that's still happening?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. "I don't have a label for it. I don't have a plan that fixes everything in order, Naomi first, then us, like there's a clean line between the two." He turned to face me fully, his eyes steady on mine in a way that made it impossible to look away. "I don't know what comes after this part."

"Neither do I," I admitted.

"Then we figure it out," he said. "Together. Or not at all. I'm not interested in some version of this where I fix things on my own and come find you after, like you're a reward waiting at the end. Whatever happens with Naomi, whatever happens with Jade and the school board and that number that keeps texting you, we go through it side by side, or we don't go through it together at all."

Something in my chest loosened, just slightly, hearing that. Not relief, exactly. Something steadier than relief. Like finally being handed a hand to hold on solid ground instead of being asked to jump first and trust someone would catch me.

I opened my mouth to answer him.

My phone buzzed on the comforter between us, cutting through the moment like a blade.

We both looked down at the same time.

Naomi's name lit up the screen again, except this time it wasn't a photo.

It was a video call, ringing, her contact photo bouncing gently with every buzz, and underneath it, for half a second before the call connected on its own, I caught a flash of the background behind wherever she was calling from.

Eli's bedroom.