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Chapter 14: Clair’s Bedroom Failure
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2026-05-10 08:30:44The rest of the night felt wrong. That was the simplest way to put it. The haunted house spat us back out into the cold carnival air with all its noise and lights and sugar sick chaos, and Clair immediately started complaining about how bad it had been, how one of the actors had smelled like cigarettes, how the mirror room had been “cheap in an insulting way.”
I nodded in the right places. Answered when she paused long enough to need a response. Walked beside her with one hand
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For a while, neither of us moved. The closet felt smaller than before, smaller than physics should’ve allowed. Like the shelves had shifted inward and the hanging coats were trying to suffocate me. My skin was too hot. My hands were trembling. My lungs couldn’t work out how to process air. Tyler’s breathing was rough behind me, uneven enough that some distant, insane part of my brain registered it with satisfaction. Then the rest of my brain remembered Clair. Clair laughing, saying my name, saying I was safe, stable and smart. How she mentioned my families money, my goal of a high paying finance job, her options on the side and how oblivious I was to almost everything. My stomach turned so sharply I thought I might be sick. Tyler’s hand left me carefully, like he’d suddenly realised I wasn't there. The absence of it made me feel exposed. Cold, wrong in a way I couldn’t explain without wanting to punch a hole through the nearest wall.
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I left the bedroom before I said something I couldn’t take back. The hallway outside felt cooler, darker, easier to breathe in than the room I’d just walked out of. Behind me, I could still hear the tail end of Clair’s voice sharp, offended, furious that I wouldn’t just do what she wanted and stop making everything difficult. I didn’t look back. My jaw was tight enough to hurt. The whole argument was still burning through me in ugly fragments. I hit the stairs too fast, one hand brushing the wall as I took them, and nearly walked straight into someone at the bottom. A hand caught my shoulder before we collided properly. “Easy, Hayes.” Of course it was Tyler. I looked up too quickly and found him standing right there in the half light of the hall, one hand still on my shoulder, expression already halfway amused. “You trying to break your neck?” he asked. “I’m fine.” He gave me one
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