Chapter 101 lcy Touch
The silence at the table was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Annabel pushed a piece of pancake around her plate, the syrup a sticky, amber puddle that she refused to touch.
The bacon, once a beacon of comfort, lay like a slab of rubber.
Fred ate with deliberate slowness, his fork scraping against the plate as he pretended not to notice her cold, coiled fury.
He tried to speak to her a few times, his voice a low rumble, but she pretended not to hear.
"Annabel?" he asked.
She took a long, exaggerated sip of coffee, the mug rattling slightly as she set it back down.
"The coffee's good," he said.
She stared at a spot on the wall behind him, her jaw clenched tight.
He fell silent again, and the only sounds were the distant hum of the refrigerator and the quiet clink of his utensils.
The air grew heavy, charged with all the words they weren't saying.
When he finished, he stood up and began to clear his own plate. Annabel watched him, her eyes narrowed. She didn't move.
When he reached for her plate, she grabbed it first. Her movements were sharp and jerky.
She pushed her chair back with a scraping noise that made him flinch. Without a word, she strode over to the sink, the plates stacked in her hands.
The silverware clattered together. Fred watched her from the table, his posture stiff.
She turned on the faucet with a sharp twist, the water rushing into the sink with a loud splash.
Fred followed her, a question hanging in the air.
"Annabel, are you..." he started to ask.
She dropped the dishes into the soapy water with a crash. A fork slid from the bowl and hit the side of the sink, making a loud, discordant ringing sound.
The noise echoed in the quiet kitchen. She didn't look at him. She spun around and walked out of the kitchen, her feet hitting the hardwood floor with an angry thud.
She didn't look back as she ascended the stairs, her back straight and her shoulders squared.
He stood frozen, one hand on the back of his chair, watching her go. His eyes followed her until she disappeared from view.
Upstairs, a door slammed with a resounding bang that rattled the very foundations of the apartment.
Fred flinched. He stared at the closed door, a hand rising to the back of his neck. The quiet that followed was absolute.
He was a statue in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by the remnants of a meal neither of them had enjoyed.
He looked at the half-eaten plate on the table and then at the sink full of dishes. He sighed, the sound escaping his lips in a long, drawn-out gust of breath.
Annabel was on her bed, her fists clenched at her sides. She was shaking with anger.
The sound of her slamming the door still vibrated in her ears. She hated that she had lost control. She hated that she had let him get to her.
She had been so sure she would make the next move, so confident that she held all the cards.
But he had so easily, so casually, dismantled her hope with a few simple words and a series of ridiculous, transparent gestures.
She felt foolish and exposed. The quiet dignity she had planned to maintain had been shattered in a single, angry moment.
"I can’t believe I let him do this to me," she muttered to herself.
She was angry at him for his cowardice, for the way he had backed away, for the way he had lied about his motives.
She was angry at herself for being so easily played.
She was angry that she had gotten her hopes up, that she had allowed a "foolish, giddy leap of thought" to blossom into something real and vibrant in her mind.
He was a man of boundaries, she had told herself. A man who kept himself meticulously in check.
She had forgotten that until he had reminded her so brutally.
"Why did I even try?" she asked in the empty room.
She flopped back onto her pillows and stared at the ceiling. The replay of the morning's events ran through her mind.
The way he had made space between them, the exaggerated steps, the absurd excuses about old coffee.
It all felt like a game.
A game she had lost before she even knew she was playing. The truth was, she had been so focused on the possibility of a new connection that she had ignored the glaring red flags.
The fear in his eyes last night hadn't been an act. It was real.
"He's afraid of something," she said to herself. "And it's not me."
She sighed, a long, weary sound. What was she going to do? She couldn't stay in her room forever, hiding from him.
She had a job to do. She had a life to live. She couldn't let him dictate her every move, her every emotion. She had to get a grip.
"I'm not a child," she said to herself, her voice firm.
She stood up and went to her closet. She needed a distraction, something to take her mind off the maddening mystery of Fred.
She pulled out a large, blank canvas and her easel. She had planned to paint the city skyline, but now she had a different idea.
She brought the easel and canvas out into the middle of the room. She stared at the blank surface, her mind racing.
She wouldn't paint the city. She would paint what she felt. She would paint the storm.
She walked over to her art supplies, grabbing a tube of deep crimson and a jar of black ink.
Her fingers were steady as she squeezed the paint onto her palette. She would turn her anger into art. It was a better use of her energy than stewing in her room.
She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had completely unraveled her.
She would show him that she could be just as controlled, just as private as he was. She would build her own walls, just as he had.
She would shut him out. She would shut the whole world out.
She picked up a brush, her hand trembling slightly. It was a good kind of tremble, a productive tremble.
She let out the breath she had been holding. The silence returned, but this time it was different.