I don’t raise my voice.
It would be easy to. My chest is tight, breath shallow, everything in me tuned sharp like a wire pulled too far, vibrating with stored energy that has nowhere clean to go. Volume would be the obvious outlet. Anger always looks more legitimate when it’s loud. It gives the other person something to react to, something they can frame as emotion instead of decision, impulse instead of resolve. I don’t give him that.
I sit up instead.
The room smells like sweat and skin and the faint mineral edge of wolf energy that hasn’t settled yet, that lingering metallic tang that clings after instincts have been stirred and not properly soothed. It hangs in the air, heavier than it should be, as if the room itself hasn’t decided how to recalibrate. The sheets are twisted around
