Chapter 28 Twenty eight

Chapter 28 Twenty eight
Zinnia’s POV

Morning light spills into the room with a kind of honesty I am not ready for, the sort that exposes everything without asking permission. I wake up in my own bed, yet the space around me feels unfamiliar, as though I have stepped into someone else’s life and cannot find my way back out. Luke is already awake, and I know it before I even open my eyes fully. The silence tells me. The way the apartment seems to hold itself still, as if it is waiting for something to break.

I find him standing in the kitchen with his back turned to me, his shoulders stiff, his presence closed off. He does not turn when I walk in, does not acknowledge the sound of my footsteps or the quiet breath I take before speaking.

“Morning,” I say, trying to keep my voice even, trying to make it sound like any other day.

He says nothing.

I move past him and pour myself a cup of coffee, noticing with a strange sense of detachment that my hands are steady, far steadier than I expect them to be. That small detail unsettles me more than it should. Luke brushes past me without a word, the distance between us sharper than any argument could ever be, and settles on the couch in the living room where he stares at the wall as though it holds answers he refuses to share.

I try again, softer this time, almost careful.

“Luke.”

The name fades before it reaches him. Or maybe he hears it and chooses not to respond. Either way, the silence swallows it whole. He does not want a conversation, does not want explanations, does not want me. He wants this quiet, this cold space where nothing has to be said and everything is already understood.

The weight of it presses against my chest until I cannot stand there any longer. I retreat to the bathroom, closing the door behind me and leaning against it as I try to steady my breathing. The air feels too thin, as if there is not enough of it to fill my lungs properly.

I shower quickly, keeping my eyes away from the mirror because I do not trust what I might see there. The reflection feels like a confrontation I am not ready to face. When I reach for my razor, my fingers hesitate for only a second before continuing, as if I am moving through a script that has already been written.

This time my hands are not steady.

The blade presses too hard, slips in a way it should not, and a sharp sting cuts through my finger. I flinch and look down, watching as a small bead of blood forms at the surface of my skin, bright and ordinary in a way that should be reassuring.

I grab a tissue and press it against the cut, counting quietly under my breath as if that will somehow fix it, as if numbers still have meaning in a world that is starting to feel unrecognizable. When I pull the tissue away, I expect to see the same small injury, the same proof that something happened.

There is nothing.

No blood, no cut, no thin red line marking where the blade touched me. My skin is smooth, untouched, as if the moment never existed. I stare at my finger, turning it slightly, pressing against the spot where I know I felt the sting.

There is no pain.

No scar.

No evidence.

It does not make sense. I know what I felt. I know what I saw. The memory is clear, sharp, undeniable, and yet it has been erased as though reality itself has decided to correct a mistake.

My heart begins to pound, each beat louder than the last, until it feels like it is echoing through my entire body. I lift my gaze to the mirror despite myself, and the woman staring back at me looks pale and shaken, her eyes too wide, her expression caught somewhere between fear and disbelief.

She looks like someone who has just witnessed something impossible.

Because she has.

My phone vibrates softly against the counter, the sound cutting through the tension like a blade. I reach for it, my fingers unsteady now, and see a number I do not recognize staring back at me. No name, no hint of who it might be, just a string of digits that somehow feels threatening.

I open the message.

The bond settles. The body remembers first. The mind will follow.

The words send a chill through me so quickly it feels like my blood has turned to ice. He knows. There is no other explanation that fits, no other possibility that makes sense. He knows about the cut, about the way it disappeared, about whatever is happening inside me.

He knows everything.

The phone slips from my hand and hits the sink before falling to the floor, the sound sharp in the small space. I cannot move, cannot think, cannot even draw a proper breath. The realization settles over me with suffocating certainty.

He is watching.

I force myself to move after a moment that feels much longer than it should, dressing quickly in jeans and my diner uniform. The fabric feels rough against my skin, familiar yet wrong, as though it belongs to a version of me that no longer exists. When I open the bathroom door, Luke is standing in the hallway, waiting without moving.

He looks at me, really looks this time, and the emptiness in his eyes is worse than anger. Anger would mean something still mattered. This feels like absence, like whatever connected us has already been cut away.

“I have to go to work,” I say, the words sounding distant even to my own ears.

He does not respond.

I step around him and head toward the front door, desperate to escape the weight of his silence.

“Zinnia.”

His voice stops me mid step. I turn back slowly, bracing myself for something I cannot quite name.

“Who are you?” he asks.

The question lands harder than any accusation could, stripping me down to something raw and undefended. For a moment, I do not have an answer, not even one I can pretend to believe.

“Just go,” he adds, looking away as though he cannot bear to see me anymore.

So I go.

The door to the diner opens with a familiar jingle that feels painfully loud today, the sound echoing in my ears like a warning shot. I flinch without meaning to, but no one notices. To them, I am just the waitress, the one who brings coffee and clears plates and blends into the background.

I move to the back, punch in, tie my apron with practiced motions, and step onto the floor. The hiss of the grill cuts through the air, sharp and overwhelming at first, like every sound has been turned up too high. I blink, forcing myself to adjust, forcing everything back into place.

The lunch rush is beginning, and my body falls into rhythm even as my mind drifts somewhere far away. I move from table to table, pouring coffee, delivering plates, offering smiles that feel automatic and hollow.

I refill cups, wipe down surfaces, keep everything moving.

I am at the counter pouring coffee when a man drops onto one of the stools, his presence heavy and abrupt. He barely looks at me, his expression dismissive, as though I am part of the furniture rather than a person.

“Coffee,” he says.

I pour it without comment. He takes a sip and immediately frowns.

“This is cold.”

I apologize and replace it, keeping my tone polite, measured, exactly what it needs to be. He takes another sip and shakes his head, irritation building.

“You call this coffee?”

I open my mouth to respond, but he continues before I can say anything.

“I asked for a refill five minutes ago. How hard is it to pour a cup of coffee?”

Then he snaps his fingers right in front of my face, the sound sharp and cutting in a way that feels deeply disrespectful.

“Hey, refill. Did you hear me?”

Something inside me shifts.

The anger rises without warning, sudden and intense, spreading through my chest like fire. It is too much, too fast, and completely out of proportion to the moment, yet I cannot stop it. It feels like something else has taken hold, something that has been waiting beneath the surface.

Above him, the light flickers.

He does not notice at first, too focused on his own frustration, too busy snapping his fingers again.

“I said refill. Are you deaf?”

The flicker grows stronger, more violent, accompanied by a low buzzing that fills the air. This time he looks up, confusion replacing irritation.

The light explodes.

Glass shatters outward in a sudden burst, fragments raining down as sparks flash and die. The man yelps and stumbles back, his stool scraping loudly against the floor as coffee spills across the counter.

“What the hell!”

The diner falls silent, every head turning toward the noise, toward the broken light, toward me.

I do not need anyone to say it.

I know.

I do not understand how or why, but I know with a certainty that settles deep in my bones, in my blood, in that strange, growing place inside me that refuses to be ignored.

I did that.

“I am so sorry,” I say quickly, my voice thin and unfamiliar, stretched tight with panic. “I do not know what happened.”

I step back, my movements clumsy, and knock over a cup that shatters on the floor, the sound only adding to the chaos.

“I have to go,” I manage, though I am not sure anyone hears me.

I push through the kitchen doors and hurry to the back, where I finally stop, pressing myself against the wall before sliding down to the floor. My hands are trembling now, the steadiness from earlier completely gone.

I stare at them, at the same skin that healed itself this morning, at the same fingers that should still carry a mark from the blade. My body is changing, remembering things it should not know, doing things I cannot explain.

The body remembers first.

I close my eyes and press my hands against my face, feeling the rapid beat of my heart beneath my palms. It is too fast, too loud, too overwhelming to ignore.

He knew.

He knew this would happen, knew I would heal, knew I would stand in a diner and shatter a light without touching it. Nothing about this is random, and that realization terrifies me more than the event itself.

Somewhere, he is watching.

My phone vibrates again in my apron pocket, but I do not reach for it. I do not need to see the screen to know who it is or what it will say.

The mind will follow.

I stay there for a long time, counting each breath, each heartbeat, each passing second until I can gather enough strength to stand. When I finally push myself up, my legs feel weak, but my hands have steadied once more, as though my body has already adapted to whatever this is.

I glance at my finger one last time.

It is still smooth, still perfect, still untouched.

The cut is gone, but the memory remains, clear and undeniable. I know what I felt, what I saw, what is happening to me, even if I cannot yet explain it.

I tuck my hands into my apron and make my way back through the kitchen, forcing myself to move, to function, to continue. When I push through the doors into the diner, everything has already settled. The man is gone, the broken glass has been cleaned, and the world has moved on as if nothing unusual occurred.

It always does.

I pick up my order pad, pour another cup of coffee, and offer a polite smile as I ask Mrs. Patterson about her cat keeping my voice steady and my expression composed.

I pretend.

It is the one thing I know how to do perfectly.