Chapter 48: SAY SOMETHING

Georgia

I walked back into that ballroom and aimed every hurt thing I had directly at him.

I don’t remember deciding to find him. One moment I stood frozen in that side hallway, hand pressed against my mouth, my whole chest hollowed out by what I’d just heard. The next, I pushed through the crowded ballroom with a kind of furious, single-minded purpose I hadn’t felt in weeks. The music, the lights, the glittering press of bodies blurred into background noise. My throat burned like I’d swallowed glass. I scanned every cluster of people, pulse hammering, until I finally spotted him near the edge of the dance floor, still talking to Liam.

His expression eased into something almost relieved at the sight of me, like he’d been waiting, like some part of him had been holding its breath. For half a second, that relief nearly undid me. It would have been so easy to let it soften the edges of my fury, to pretend I hadn’t heard what I’d heard.

That relief didn’t last long.

"We need to talk," I demanded, my voice sharper than I intended, cutting straight through whatever Liam had been saying.

Puck’s expression shifted instantly, careful alarm sliding into place, the ease draining out of him so fast it looked like watching a light switch off. "Georgia, what’s wrong?" he asked, wary, already searching my face like he could read the damage there before I said a word.

"Not here." I didn’t wait for agreement. I turned and walked toward a quieter alcove near the edge of the room, trusting him to follow. He did, footsteps quick behind mine, while Liam fell back with a wary glance between the two of us before finding somewhere else to be. Something unspoken passed over his face, something that made my stomach twist tighter, some flicker of understanding that told me he knew exactly what this conversation would be about.

The second we were alone, everything I’d been holding back since that hallway came pouring out, unstoppable now, like a dam finally giving way after weeks of strain.

"I heard you," I said, shaking, all the careful control I’d managed on the walk over finally cracking apart. "In the hallway. With Liam. You said I’m beneath you. That I can’t know what you are. That I deserve better than, than whatever world you’re talking about. I heard all of it, Puck."

His face went completely white, the color draining so fast I almost felt sorry for him. Almost, before the hurt swallowed that feeling whole, leaving only the ache of weeks of unanswered questions demanding to be paid. I thought of the way he’d looked at me not five minutes ago, that flicker of relief, like I was something he’d been waiting on all night. It made this so much worse, knowing he could look at me like that and still have been the one saying those words in the hallway.

"That’s not, Georgia, that’s not what I meant." His voice cracked, pleading, and for a moment he looked so young, so lost, that some small traitorous part of me wanted to believe him before I’d even heard the rest.

"Then what did you mean?" I cut him off, furious, wounded, months of confusing silences and half explanations finally boiling over into something I couldn’t control anymore. "Explain it to me. Right now. Actually explain it, for once, instead of just telling me I wouldn’t understand."

He opened his mouth. I watched him try, watched something desperate and pained war behind his eyes, his hands curling and uncurling at his sides like he was physically fighting against something, some invisible leash yanking him back every time he leaned toward the truth. But nothing came out. No explanation, no defense, nothing except silence stretching longer and longer between us while his jaw worked uselessly, the muscles in his throat tightening like the words were lodged there, refusing to surface.

We were close enough now that I could see the faint tremor in his hands, close enough to touch him if I reached out, and somehow that nearness made the silence crueler than if he’d simply walked away. All those weeks of wanting to get close to him, and now that I finally stood within reach, he had nothing to give me.

"Say something," I demanded, my voice cracking. "Anything. Just tell me I heard it wrong. Tell me it’s not what it sounded like."

He looked like he was drowning, like every word he wanted to say was being physically dragged back down his throat before it could reach me. The longer he stood there, silent and struggling, the more his silence started to feel like exactly the confirmation I’d already decided it was, and something inside me curled up small and tired, done fighting for an answer that clearly wasn’t coming.

"You can’t even deny it," I said, quieter now, something breaking in my own voice. "That’s answer enough."

"It’s not what you think," he said, strangled, barely more than a whisper, like even that much cost him something enormous, like he was paying for each syllable with a piece of himself.

"Then tell me what it is." I wasn’t shouting anymore, just raw, exhausted, desperate for something, anything, to make sense of the last several weeks. "Please, Puck. For once, just tell me the truth."

Something in his eyes had changed when he looked at me, gone gold, bright and unmistakable even in the dim light of the alcove, something desperate and cornered behind the color that had nothing to do with anger at all. For a moment I thought I saw the boy from the courtyard again, the one who apologized, the one whose canines caught the moonlight. My heart lurched painfully at the memory, at how close we’d been to something real before it slipped away again, and grief rose up so suddenly in my chest that it nearly stole my breath.

He didn’t speak.

He stood there, silent, jaw locked, his whole body rigid with the effort of holding back whatever truth he couldn’t let himself say. The silence stretched on and on between us, unbearable, final, swallowing every hope I’d carried into that alcove, until it became its own kind of answer, the only one I had left to work with. And somewhere beneath the anger, beneath the humiliation still burning hot in my throat, I felt something quieter and far more devastating settle into place: the certainty that whatever we might have been to each other, it would never be enough to break whatever held him silent now.