Chapter 65 Where is she going?

Chapter 65 Where is she going?
Jeremy's POV

I could feel it again. The erection. I could feel myself. My whole body. I was alive again after months. I could feel the lightness in my face. I could feel the joy rising inside me.

But things changed. I don't know what happened. But she pulled back.

Her hands came up against my chest and she pushed. Hard. For someone her size the force of it surprised me. I stumbled back one step.

Then the slap came.

My head turned with it.

I stood there. Cheek burning. Eyes forward.

She was breathing hard. Both hands at her sides now. Fists. Her chest rising and falling like she had been running.

"Get out." She said.

"Margaret—"

"Don't." She pointed at the door. Her voice was shaking but not from weakness. From something much bigger than that. "Don't say my name right now. Don't say anything. Just get out of my room."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"You're right." She cut me off. "You shouldn't have. So please." Her voice dropped. Quiet now. More dangerous than the shouting.
"Get out Jeremy."

I looked at her.

At the fire in her face. At her eyes that were too bright and too full of something she refused to let spill.

I said nothing else.

Walked to the door. Opened it. Stepped out.
The door closed behind me before I had fully cleared the frame.

I stood in the hallway.

Hand pressed to my cheek. Then I looked down at myself. I could still feel it. But all I could think now was what had gone wrong.
The corridor was empty. Just me and the low burning wall lamps and the sound of my own breathing.

I had kissed her.

She had kissed me back.

And then she had slapped me hard enough to remind me exactly who I was and everything I had done and everything I had no right to want.

I walked.

The anger in me wouldn't subside. I'm a good man if I could say so myself. Don't I deserve happiness without seeking permission every time? I knew what I was about to do was stupid. But maybe I needed to change my route.

The moment I made that stupid decision I rushed down to Mia's chamber.

Maybe I needed to prove something to myself. Maybe I needed to know whether Margaret meant something real or whether my body was just confusing feelings for something it wasn't.

I knocked.

Mia opened the door. Surprised to see me. Eyes moving over my face immediately. Taking in the cheek. The expression. Whatever she saw there.

She stepped back. Let me in without a word.

Her room was soft. Warm. Everything arranged neatly the way she always kept things.

She sat on the edge of the bed. Watched me.

I sat beside her.

She waited.

I reached for her hand.

She let me take it.

I held it. Looked at it. Waited for something. Anything. The smallest flicker of what I had felt in that room just twenty minutes ago.

Nothing.

In fact all the active energy I had felt before disappeared the moment I touched her.

Like always. Like every time before. Like twenty nine years of nothing had decided to make their point very clearly tonight.

I let go of her hand.

Stood up.

Pressed both fists against the windowsill and leaned there. Head down.

"Useless." I said. Under my breath. To nobody. To myself. To the window.

"Jeremy." Mia's voice. Gentle. Behind me.

"Don't." I said.

"Hey." She came and stood beside me. Not touching. Just there. "Look at me."

I looked.

Her face was soft. Patient in a way that made something in me feel worse instead of better.

"Stop doing this to yourself." She said quietly.

"I can't even—" I stopped. Shook my head.

"It's going to work out." She said. "These things take time. It's not—"

"It's not time Mia." I said. "It's never been time. It's something else entirely." I looked back at the window. At the dark outside. "Nothing is going to work out. And we both know it."

She was quiet for a moment.

"Stay." She said finally. "Just sleep. You need rest."

I looked at her.

Then at the room.

"I'll sleep in my own chamber." I said.

She nodded. Unlike her usual self she didn't fight it. Didn't ask me to stay one more time.

I walked away. Didn't look back once.

I didn't sleep at all that night.

The next day came and I was basically useless. I couldn't do anything or go anywhere. I stayed in my chamber throughout the day and managed to push through into the night.

I lay in my own bed staring at the ceiling until the dark outside my window shifted from black to deep blue. Then I got up.
Washed my face. Stood at the mirror for a long time looking at nothing.

By early evening I had made a decision.

I would go and apologize. Properly. Not for what I felt. But for the way I had acted on it without asking. Without thinking. Without giving her any choice in the matter.

That part was wrong. I knew it.

The inn was quiet when I arrived. The front desk woman barely looked up.

I went to her floor.

Stopped outside her door.

Raised my hand to knock.

And then I heard it.

Footsteps. Coming from inside. Moving toward the door.

I stepped back. Into the shadow of the stairwell. Without fully deciding to.

The door opened.

Margaret stepped out.

Robe replaced now with a dark fitted dress. Her hair pulled back. A lantern in her hand.

She looked both ways down the corridor. Careful. Checking.

Then she moved.

Fast. Quiet. Purposeful.

Not like someone going for a late evening walk.

Like someone who knew exactly where they were going and didn't want anyone to know.

I followed.

Kept my distance. Kept to the shadows. Watched her move through the inn corridor and down the back stairs and out through the side door that opened onto the east street.

The east street.

The same back streets where she had been seen with Benjamin before.

My jaw tightened.

She wasn't going to clear her head.

She wasn't going for air.

She was going to him.

I stayed back. Far enough that the lantern light didn't reach me. Close enough that I wouldn't lose her.

And I followed..