Chapter 145: I’m Your Prize Too
Trevor watched her until the glass doors closed, then pressed his fingers into Lucas’s hand, firm, steady.
Lucas didn’t move.
His fingers stayed where they were, curled lightly beneath Trevor’s, skin warm and still a little clammy. The weight of that touch should’ve been reassuring. Instead, it made something inside him unravel by degrees.
He didn’t know what to feel. Not clearly. Jealousy had struck first, sharp and irrational, curling low in his stomach when he saw Vivienne’s face. The way she carried herself. The way she looked at Trevor like she once had the right to. For a moment, it felt like history had returned just to mock him.
But Trevor’s voice hadn’t been warm. His eyes hadn’t lingered. His tone had landed like glass underfoot, controlled but cruel in a way only familiarity made possible.
And that’s what unsettled Lucas more than anything.
Because what if everything he remembered had been twisted? What if the man who’d stood beside Vivienne in that old memory hadn’t been this Trevor at all?
’What if I got it wrong?’ Lucas thought. ’What if the memories aren’t true? What if only my torment was real? What if the rest was a product of my decaying mind?’
The questions swirled in his chest like smoke, choking and shapeless, and impossible to catch. The kind that didn’t scream but whispered steadily, cruelly, until you couldn’t tell which parts of your pain were yours and which were planted.
Trevor tightened his grip on Lucas’s hand, grounding him before the spiral could take root. It wasn’t harsh, just enough pressure to remind him he was here, in the present, in this body, at the table of a high-end restaurant with soft lighting, too many glasses, and Trevor and his grandmother watching him with quiet, growing worry.
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His skin felt too warm. The back of his neck prickled. There was a tremble in his ribs he hadn’t noticed until just now.
"Dear," Lady Fitzgeralt said gently, her tone softer than he’d expected. "We can leave. You don’t have to force yourself."