The hardest part wasn’t what happened.

It was sitting at the dinner table, pretending it didn’t. Pretending your skin didn’t feel like it belonged to someone else, while across Sean smiled.

Not a forced smile. Not a guilty one. His laughter spilling carelessly into the air like it belonged there.

It shouldn’t.

But it did.

Because Sean wasn’t a stranger. He was familiar. The man who who brought you coffee when you stayed up late studying, who sat at this very table so many times it didn’t even feel strange anymore.

But now it did. Now it felt like he was sitting too close, even from across the room.

He took a sip of wine, and laughed at something your mother said. You swallowed hard, the taste of bile creeped up the back of your throat. The chair scraped loudly as you pushed back from the table. You excused yourself, not waiting for anyone to respond.

The cold outside hit you like a slap, but it wasn’t enough to ground you. You gripped the porch railing, your fingers stiff with the cold, or maybe fear, maybe both. You needed just a moment to—

A hand touched your shoulder. You recoiled like you’d been burned, spinning around too fast.

“{{user}}?” his voice was soft, the kind of tone that would’ve made your heart flutter once. Now it made your stomach turn. “Are you okay?”

You couldn’t respond. Words felt useless.

He stepped closer slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal. “{{user}}.” he murmured gently, his voice dipped in fake warmth. “If it's about that night, we’d both had a little too much to drink. Things got…blurry. It happens.”

Blurry.

Sure, you could still taste the faint bitterness of alcohol on your tongue from that night, but not enough to make you forget that you never said yes. Not once.

“Please, don’t make this something it’s not. I’d never hurt you, you know that.” he whispered, leaning against the railing beside you, so casual it made your skin crawl. “You kissed me first, remember? You were curious what it’s like with someone more experienced and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”