Chapter 67 A Door Left Open

Chapter 67 A Door Left Open
POV: Zara

My hands were shaking so bad I dropped my phone twice before I even got the screen unlocked.

I think they're going to be there tonight too. That sentence had been sitting in my chest for an hour now, heavy and sharp, while I tried to make myself focus on getting ready instead of spiraling through every name it could possibly mean. I'd typed " Who is it to Naomi four separate times and deleted it four separate times, because some instinct deep in my gut told me she'd tell me when she was ready, and pushing too hard might make that door slam shut again.

I sat on the edge of my bed in the dress I'd almost talked myself out of wearing, staring at my own reflection in the mirror across the room, when my phone buzzed against the comforter.

Naomi.

Are you going tonight?

Three words. Simple, careful, nothing like the explosive text from this morning. I read it twice, my thumb hovering over the keyboard, every nerve in my body lighting up at once because this felt different than the threats, different than the fear. This felt like my best friend, actually trying to find her way back to me, one cautious word at a time.

I typed my answer fast, before I could overthink it into something smaller and safer than the truth.

Yes.

I hit send and immediately set the phone face-down on my lap, my heart hammering so loud I could hear it in my own ears. I stared at the wall across from me, counting my own breaths, waiting.

The silence stretched out so long I started to wonder if I'd said the wrong thing. Maybe yes felt too easy, too forgiving, too much like nothing had happened between us at all. Maybe she'd wanted me to say no, to prove I'd choose her over a night that had already cost us both so much.

I flipped the phone back over.

The little gray bubble was there. Typing. Stopping. Typing again. I watched it dance across the screen for what felt like an entire minute, my whole body wound tight, bracing for whatever was coming.

Finally, one word landed.

Okay.

That was it. No, I'll see you there. No I'm glad. No explanation about the secret she was carrying, the one about who'd really been sending those messages, the one she'd promised to tell me before anyone else could twist it first. Just okay, sitting there small and plain on my screen, and somehow it meant more than a paragraph could have.

It wasn't forgiveness. I knew that much. Forgiveness would have sounded different, warmer, maybe even a little funny the way Naomi always made hard things easier with a joke at the worst possible moment. This wasn't that. This was something more careful, more fragile, a single word holding a door open just wide enough for both of us to maybe, eventually, find our way back through it.

I held onto that one word like it was something precious, turning it over in my mind while I finished getting ready, smoothing my hair down with hands that wouldn't quite stop trembling, swiping on the one lip gloss I owned because some small, hopeful part of me wanted to look like a girl who believed tonight could still go well.

My mom knocked softly on my door before I'd even finished. She didn't say anything when she saw me standing there in the dress, but her eyes went a little glassy, and she pressed her lips together like she was holding something back.

"You look beautiful," she finally said, her voice thick. "You look like you again."

"I feel terrified," I admitted.

"That's allowed too." She crossed the room and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, the same gesture she'd done a thousand times since I was small. "Terrified and beautiful aren't opposites, baby. You can be both walking out that door tonight."

I almost laughed, a small, shaky sound that came out half like a sob. "What if it goes wrong? What if whoever's been sending those messages is actually there?"

"Then you won't be alone," she said firmly. "Eli will be there. Naomi's reaching back out, even if it's small right now. And I already filed that police report this morning, regardless of what that text last night threatened. We are not backing down because someone wants us scared into silence."

I nodded, swallowing hard, and let her pull me into a quick, tight hug before stepping back to look at me one more time.

"Go," she said. "Be brave. I'll be right here when you get home, however the night ends."

I grabbed my phone off the bed on my way out, one last glance at Naomi's message glowing on the screen, the small word that felt like the first solid step toward something we both still wanted, even if neither of us knew exactly how to walk back to it yet.

I was halfway down the stairs when the phone buzzed again in my hand.

Not Naomi this time.

The unknown number.

My stomach dropped straight through the floor, my feet stopping cold on the staircase, my mom's voice trailing off behind me as she called out something I didn't quite hear over the sound of my own pulse roaring in my ears.

I opened the message with a hand that wouldn't stop shaking.

Nice dress. I'll be watching you put it on tonight, same as I watched you take it off the hanger this morning.

Under the text, a photo loaded in.

It was me. Standing exactly where I'd stood an hour ago, dress half-zipped, reflected in my own bedroom mirror.

Taken from somewhere inside my house.