Previously…
Sara can’t help herself.
In what starts as a harmless attempt at exploration she get’s pulled into a web by an OnlyFans performer.
There relationship builds until it breaks.
But Sara doesn’t break with it, she turns into something else.
It’s unclear how she’ll respond and how it will affect Tessa and the rest of her circle of friends.
This is the beginning of the three part finale of I Can’t Touch You Like That.
I Can’t Touch You Like That (Ep 7)
Sara ran.
Her legs moved like they were made for it—long and powerful. Her form precise. Each stride effortless, as she sliced through the morning chill along the lakeshore path.
She didn’t run for the cardio.
Or the endorphins.
Or even the view.
She ran to clear her head.
Chicago’s skyline glinted to the side of her, half-lit in dawn gold.
The lake crashing quietly on the other.
A man on a bike passed in the other direction.
Turning his head.
Slowing down.
Sara didn’t flinch.
Ponytail swinging.
Bra firm against her chest.
Her black soccer shorts hugging her curves.
She wasn’t running away from anything.
She was running to outpace the silence.
To burn off the pieces of herself she didn’t want to look.
Her feet hit the pavement like a metronome. Steady, precise, and cold.
Just like her.
She didn’t smile.
Didn’t frown.
In fact shockingly she didn’t feel much at all.
Tessa was crying.
The kind that streaked mascara down her cheeks and made her breath stutter in broken gasps.
She was throwing clothes into an obnoxiously large pink suitcase—grabbing at drawers, yanking hangers, unfolded, wrinkled, desperate.
Sara stood in the doorway.
She couldn’t help but wonder where Tessa even kept that monstrosity—and how she’d never seen it before.
“You can’t leave over this,” Sara said.
Her delivery was awful.
She could be charming when she wanted to be.
But moments like this were her Achilles heel.
Tessa’s head snapped up, eyes wild and glossy.
“Are you fucking serious right now?”
Sara didn’t answer.
Tessa turned back to the bag, shoving harder.
“I mean, actually—what the fuck is wrong with you?”
A hoodie bounced off the lip of the suitcase.
“She basically fucked everyone on campus but me.”
The trail curved.
Sara attacked it without hesitation.
Her hair whipped behind her.
The burn in her legs helped.
So did the cold air in her lungs.
For a second—just a second—she could pretend she hadn’t hurt anyone.
That her hands weren’t dirty.
That she was still the Sara that she had always been.
She replayed the events of the past week.
Not in order of events.
But in memories as they entered her stream of thought.
Tessa kicked the door open with her foot—barely able to contain her smile.
Okay.
There was zero containment happening.
She bounced with each step like her body hadn’t caught up to what had just happened.
Lip gloss smudged. Jacket collar crooked. She looked like a girl who’d just been kissed in public and wanted the entire world to know.
“Hellooooo,” she called out, voice sing-song and flushed with adrenaline.
“Guess who just made out with Peyton fucking McAllister?”
No answer.
She dropped her keys. Kicked off her boots. Did a slow 360 with her arms out like a little girl on a summer day, then flopped face-first onto the couch, giggling into a throw pillow like a teenager.
Sara looked up from her book and smiled, “That good, huh?”
Sara’s phone vibrated.
Tessa had sent her a screenshot.
Tessa: My lips are on 🔥
Peyton: u taste like honey & tequila
Tessa bit her lip, grinning so hard it hurt.
Sara glanced at the photo, then at Tessa’s limbs, sprawled wide like a starfish.
She looked back again, mystified at how Tessa had managed to take and send that screenshot mid-fall.
Then Tessa sat up suddenly—remembering.
“Guess who we ran into there??? Gary!!! AWKWARD.”
Sara raised her eyebrows doing her best to appear invested.
“How’d that go?” She asked.
“He just came up to me a DRUNK mess. Talking about how he had to speak to me.”
“Oh no. How did Peyton respond?”
“She was cool about it. I told her we’ve been friends since forever and that yes he’s in love with me, but no, I don’t love him like that.”
Her voice trailed off—smiling again, almost drunk on the memory.
“Anyway. Nothing can ruin the best night of my life.”
Sara couldn’t suppress a smile, even as she tried to resist rolling her eyes.
Tessa looked at her, head tilted as if she was trying to solve a puzzle she didn’t have the pieces for.
Then she gasped, delighted.
“Oh my god. You WHORE!”
She launched off the couch like she’d been ejected.
Sprinting toward Sara with full gremlin energy.
“Look at your fucking neck!”
Sara burst out laughing, yanking the comforter up like a shield.
“Shut up,” she grinned, already flushed.
Tessa was undeterred.
She knelt on the edge of the bed, clawing at the blanket, desperate to get a better look.
“Who the fuck did that to you!?”
she demanded. “Is that a bite mark?! You’ve always had Bella energy but DAMN…”
Sara shook her head, laughing harder as she clutched the blanket tight.
“You’re insane.”
Tessa narrowed her eyes. “I’m insane?? Bitch, you are literally trying to gaslight me into believing you haven’t been getting cracked by a vampire.”
She pointed, accusatory. Dead serious.
“Neck. Bite. Bruises. Audrey Hepburn scarves every day for a week. Girl, you are not slick.”
She didn’t slow down.
Not even a little.
The wind bit at her skin.
Her legs screamed.
Good.
She welcomed the pain.
It was something she thrived on.
This kind of suffering made sense.
Peyton leaned across the bar, running her finger around the rim of her glass like she was hypnotizing him.
Her lip gloss caught the neon.
Her chest glistened—sweat, oil, aura, maybe.
Gary was already smiling.
High or drunk or both—he couldn’t stop blinking, like he wasn’t sure she was real.
Peyton didn’t mind.
She enjoyed the attention.
“Are you always this high,” she asked, tilting her head.
He grinned. “You always this hot?”
She smirked.
Oblivious to him, he was on the hook and she was reeling him in.
Peyton stepped closer, closing the space between them with the kind of confidence that came from knowing the effect she had on people.
Then she leaned in—closer than necessary—until her lips were almost at his ear.
“What’s going on with you and Tessa?” She asked coyly, “Are the two of you a thing?”
Gary’s eyes suddenly flashed sadness.
“We’re old friends. It’s whatever. It’ll never happen but she’ll always be my number one.”
Peyton took a sip of her drink, eyes locked on him over the rim.
Then she slid a hand up his chest.
Tugging at his shirt.
“Come on,” she said. “I’m bored.”
He resisted, too out of his mind to realize what was happening.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“I’m going to fix you.”
Across the bar, Sara saw everything.
She hadn’t meant to.
Those two were the last people she’d be looking for.
But there it was.
Peyton—flushed, glowing, greedy.
Gary—already tipping and enjoying the ride.
Tessa’s dream girl.
Wrapped around a boy who still thought Taco Bell was a personality.
Sara’s jaw clenched.
Her drink, untouched.
Her pulse, suddenly sharp.
All she could do is watch as Peyton pulled Gary toward the hallway, laughing like the night was hers.
Sara’s fingers tightened around her glass.
She didn’t know yet what she was going to do.
Only that something in her had snapped.
Back to the trail.
The scene played again behind her eyes—
but slower this time.
Clearer.
Sharper.
She felt the same way now that she did then.
Peyton wasn’t drunk.
She wasn’t confused.
She wasn’t swept up in the moment.
This wasn’t something new to her.
This was her game.
Playing with people.
Tasting them.
Tossing them aside.
Seeing what she could get away with.
Sara clenched her jaw, breath ragged as the rage uncoiled into something more intense.
It made her sick to her stomach.
But it also made her wet.
No one had ever given that bitch what she deserved.
No one had ever gotten the best of her.
Sara’s pace quickened.
Her body was on autopilot but her mind was back in that bar, watching the space they left behind.
It was so vivid.
Feeling those feelings, thinking those thoughts.
The challenge was intoxicating.
She didn’t want to hurt Peyton.
Not exactly.
She wanted to break her.
Slowly.
Perfectly.
From the inside out.
The way she knew Peyton had done to others.
The way she had broke Tessa.
Sara sat on the edge of her bed, withdrawn, knees tucked, hoodie sleeves covering her hands.
She wanted to say something.
Wanted to tell Tessa what she saw.
But the words got caught in the back of her throat, like gum under a desk.
What if she was overreacting?
What if she was wrong?
Tessa was humming softly, rummaging through her makeup bag, half-dressed and glowing.
She paused.
Looked up at Sara.
“Okay. What’s up with you?”
Sara hesitated.
“Nothing Tess why?”
“Are you weirded out because I know you’ve been fucking one of the Cullens?”
Sara laughed, “No…”
“Then what is going on?”
“Okay, it’s about Peyton. I don’t know how far things went—”
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
A knock exploded against the door.
Tessa jumped.
Then peeked out the peep hole before opening the door.
“Jesus Christ, Gary,” she groaned, as she opened the door. “What the fuck is your problem?”
Gary stood there—messy hair, glassy eyes, shirt halfway untucked, energy all over the place.
He looked like he was running from the cops.
His gaze flicked to Sara.
Then back to Tessa.
Shifting uncomfortably.
“Can I talk to you in private?”
Tessa rolled her eyes.
Sara couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Gary, I’m getting ready. And I’m not kicking my roommate out over some dumb shit. She already knows everything anyway. So just say whatever you’ve got to say and get it over with.”
Gary winced.
He glanced at Sara again, clearly embarrassed.
Then gently tugged Tessa toward the bed, behind the dressing screen, as if that would give them privacy.
Sara stayed frozen, listening.
“I have to tell you something,” he mumbled. “But don’t hate me.”
Tessa sighed. “Yes, I’ve put that together, Gary. What is it? Did you get someone pregnant? Oh my God—did you give me an STD?”
“WHAT?! No!”
Sara sat stiff as stone.
Waiting.
Like that puff of air at the optometrist’s office.
She knew it was coming.
Just not exactly when.
“I seriously don’t have time for this.”
“I slept with Peyton.”
Sara’s eyes widened.
She instinctively checked to make sure they couldn’t see her.
Then looked around—searching for a reaction from the audience that wasn’t there.
Tessa barked a laugh. “Why are you ALWAYS fucked up, Gary? You’re not making any sense.”
“She came up to me at the bar. Out of nowhere. She was so hot. I don’t even know what she was saying really. She asked me about you and I told her… I told her you’ll always be my number one.”
He looked down, ashamed.
“She said she’d fix that for me.”
Tessa narrowed her eyes. “Gary. Stop. I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but stop. I’m worried about you. You seriously might need rehab or something.”
“She took me to this hotel. Like a crazy fancy one. And we fucked…
I think it worked.”
Tessa blinked. Then laughed—talking to him like he was muttering nonsense in his sleep.
“What worked? Your dick for once?”
Gary didn’t laugh.
“She fixed me.”
Pause.
“I don’t know how I could do this to you though, Tess…”
Tessa frowned. “What do you mean she fixed you?”
Gary exhaled, soft and stupid.
“I’m not in love with you anymore,” he said. “I think I’m in love with her.”
That hit.
It was nonsense.
Absolute, delusional, off-the-rails bullshit.
But it hit.
Tessa stared at him, expression hardening.
“Okay, Gary,” she said slowly. “Get the fuck out. You are taking this shit way too far.”
He didn’t move.
“GET. THE FUCK. OUT!”
Sara’s breath fogged in front of her, but her mind was boiling.
She was replaying it again—
Not the moment Gary said it.
Not the part where Tessa screamed.
No.
What came after.
Peyton had admitted it.
Casually. Openly. Like she was recapping a TikTok she’d just seen.
She said she thought she was “helping.”
Helping?
Sara could still see the way Tessa froze as she told it.
Still hear the way her voice cracked—
and then softened.
And the worse part was how in the days that passed, she started rationalizing and explaining things away.
“Well… I mean, we were never official… and he was really drunk… and I did kiss her right in front of him…”
Like it was her fault.
Like Peyton hadn’t orchestrated the whole thing.
Sara’s pace picked up.
She saw it clearly now.
Tessa was under some kind of spell.
Caught in the shine of someone who knew exactly how to make you feel chosen and then discard you when the novelty wore off.
It was cruel.
And it was calculated.
Sara’s hands pulled inside her sleeves as Tessa gushed about it for the hundredth time.
As she replayed the memory, her reaction now mirrored her reaction then.
Fists tight.
What was done, was done.
But as she played it all back…
How it happened.
What led to her actions.
She realized that she would have done it all over again.
Tessa couldn’t see it.
Not yet.
But Sara could.
She had no choice.
Someone had to break the spell.
And that bitch along with it.
(To be continued…)
Wow fantadtic