Chapter 77 – Try Again

Margot’s POV

I jolted upright, my heart slamming so hard against my ribs that I thought it might crack them.

Sweat coated every inch of my skin, soaking the neckline of my vest, my chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid bursts like I’d been underwater too long and only now broken through to the surface.

My throat burned. My eyes stung. And I couldn’t breathe.

Tears were already streaming down my face, hot and panicked, unprovoked, before I could even remember what had woken me in the first place.

A scream?

No. My own scream. One I didn’t even realise I had let out… Or did I imagine it?

It was still pitch black in the room. Cold. Unfamiliar.

My hands flung out to my sides instinctively, searching for something, anything to tell me where I was before I heard the fast shuffling of sheets come from beside me…

“What is it?!” came Coban’s rough, panicked voice. “What’s wrong?!”

I couldn’t make out his face at first, before my eyes eventually adjusted in the dark, seeing that Coban was already sitting up, the covers pooling around his lap as his eyes scanned over me like I’d just been attacked.

His hands reached for me, unsure at first, then firm and grounding as they found my shoulders. I flinched. Only a little. But enough for him to notice.

“Hey, hey, it’s only me. You’re safe in here, I can promise you that,” he said, more softly than I ever thought he was capable of. “What happened?”

I turned to him finally, my lungs still fighting for air, my limbs trembling.

“I… it was… I had a bad dream,” I panted, eyes wide, vision still blurry with tears at the memory of my father’s face flashing across my mind.

He sighed, an exhale that was both exhausted and relieved, and without another word, he just pulled me toward him, wrapping an arm around my back and dragging me flush against his side like it was second nature.

I didn’t fight it. I didn’t even think about it.

I melted into him, the terror still lingering at the base of my skull as we lay back down together… the smell of him seeming to ground me better than oxygen ever could.

“You’re too stressed,” he murmured, his voice coated in sleep but still somehow firm. “Too damn upset all the time. It’s messing with your head now. You need to relax, it’s only the first week, Bella.”

His fingers drifted across my spine, tracing a slow pattern that made my eyes flutter closed even though I wasn’t ready to return to sleep just yet.

Not after that nightmare… Not after what it was about…

My father’s face was still scorched into my memory like a brand. The look in his eyes. The belt in his hand. The words he used to scream at me that made Coban’s own yells sound like child’s play in here.

It terrified me how closely I’d been able to draw the line between the two men. But Coban wasn’t my father. He was… something else entirely.

Something a whole lot better to add…

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words falling out of me without my permission, but I knew I meant them.

He tensed beneath me. The kind of full-body tension that told me he was choosing not to respond too quickly, choosing his next move carefully.

“What for?” he asked eventually, testing me with his voice like he didn’t fully believe I had something worth apologising for.

I didn’t speak right away. I just shifted a little closer, resting my cheek more fully against his bare chest, letting my fingers drag lightly across the warm surface there. I traced slow circles, aimless patterns, trying to untangle my mind from the nightmares and wrap myself in something real.

“For my meltdown earlier…” I said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It was just… me. Overthinking things like I always do.”

And I meant it. Every word.

The guilt was sharp and raw in my throat, knowing the way I’d shoved him away, crying like he’d hit me – when he definitely hadn’t.

He hadn’t hurt me. Or pushed himself on me. Not once. Not even close. But I reacted as though I hadn’t been enjoying it seconds before my thoughts had come and got the better of me!

And now, wrapped in his arms, hearing the steadiness of his heartbeat against my ear, I realised how safe I’d felt with him this entire time.

Despite everything this week.

“I rushed things with you…” Coban muttered beside me, his voice lower now, more serious. “Shouldn’t have come at you like that. You weren’t ready.”

But I shook my head against him.

“No. This one’s on me,” I breathed out, my words catching slightly. “I thought about things, some dumb stuff, and it just got to me and so I’m sorry. Thanks for… handling it well. You didn’t have to.”

Another pause.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just let the silence build between us again until I thought maybe he wasn’t going to respond at all.

But then…

“I’m a fucking ass at the best of times, Bella!” he said, with the faintest ghost of a chuckle. “Pretty sure I can let you off the hook for one bad moment.”

A smile tugged at the corner of my lips before I could stop it. It was small. Barely there. But it was real.

I felt the tension in my chest loosen just a little. Just enough to make the pain bearable.

“I don’t know what this is,” I whispered into the dark, not even realising I’d said it aloud until his fingers paused in their path across my back.

“This?” he echoed.

“Us,” I clarified, before I could backtrack. “This… thing that’s growing between us. I don’t know what it is. What it’s meant to be. It scares me!” I admit, despite my better judgment of keeping it to myself.

He didn’t answer that. Not directly.

But his arm tightened around me a little more. His fingers returned to their slow rhythm, and when I tilted my face up to glance at him, his jaw was set – not in anger, but in thought.

Like he didn’t know the answer to any of it either.

But was he even willing to figure it out? With me?

“Let’s get back to sleep, you have a report to give in the morning and I have visitations…” he mumbles, his tone not giving me much of what I had hoped for.

“One last thing…” I hummed, topping off the words with an unpredicted yawn.

Feeling his head turn towards me, he waited. “Hm? What’s that?” He presses for me, as I bite back the tiny smirk growing on my face.

“We missed dinner… we skipped another meal again…” I state, before feeling his chest move in a genuine laugh.

“Fuck… that we did!” He muses, shuffling slightly to get comfy, keeping me at his side. “We’ll try again next time.” He states, as I nod and soak up the gentle moment.

We’ll try again…