Heather wasn't in the mood to go out. She had almost canceled — twice.
She stared at Jake's messages for hours, ignoring them one after the other. It wasn't until his fourth text that she finally gave in with a simple, emotionless reply: Fine. What time?
She wasn't sure why she said yes. Maybe it was the suffocating walls of her house, or the need to breathe somewhere that didn't feel like a battlefield.
Maybe it was the constant swirl of drama that choked her every time she tried to settle down. Or maybe, just maybe, she needed a distraction — one that didn't wear the face of Lauren, Caius, or the dead boy from that night.
Jake had said it was nothing serious — "just dinner between two people tired of life's nonsense," his words exactly.
He'd made it sound easy, casual, like something harmless. Something she couldn't really refuse, and deep down, she didn't want to.
