The admission hangs between us—that he wants me here, needs me here, is terrified I’ll vanish the way I did from the cabin. That he’s as fucked up about this as I am, just showing it differently.
“Okay,” I hear myself say.
His shoulders drop with relief. “Yeah?”
“For now.” I pull my hand back, wrapping it around my coffee mug. “But I’m not staying forever.”
“I’m not asking you to.” But something in his face says that might be exactly what he wants.
The days blur together in a strange rhythm of pretending. Koa goes to practice. I stay in his dorm, healing, trying to remember what normal feels like. I shower until the water runs cold. I fold laundry that isn’t mine. I cook meals I barely eat.
I try not to think about the gun in my hand. The recoil. The way Gilbert looked at me in that final second before the bullet tore through his chest.
But the thoughts come anyway, sliding in during quiet moments. When I’m washing dishes. When I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling. When I’m doing absolutely nothing, and my brain decides to replay the whole scene in high definition.
You killed him.
You’re a murderer.
You’re no better than he was.
On the fourth day, I can’t take the walls anymore. I need to move, to do something, to prove I’m not just hiding from the world.
I find myself walking to the liberal arts building, the one where my classes were supposed to be. The ones I missed because my life exploded and took me with it.
I slip into the back of the American Literature lecture. She doesn’t notice me—too focused on discussing Fitzgerald and the corruption of the American Dream. I sit in the back row and try to absorb the words, try to remember what it felt like to care about symbolism and themes and whether Gatsby was tragic or pathetic.
The girl I was cared about these things. The girl who had a scholarship and a plan and a future that didn’t involve blood under her fingernails.
I don’t know who I am now.
After class, I walk through campus like a ghost, observing. Students complaining about exams. Couples holding hands. Someone playing guitar on the quad. All of it feels impossibly distant, like I’m watching through glass.
I stop at the dining hall, get coffee I don’t want, sit at a table by the window. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out, half-expecting bad news.
It’s been quiet. Too quiet. Like the universe is holding its breath, waiting to see what I’ll do next.
I open my messages and type before I can overthink it.
Me: you made it?
I send it to Atticus. Wait. The three dots appear almost immediately.
Atticus: Always.
Something in my chest loosens. Just a little.
A few minutes later, my phone buzzes again. Revan this time.
Revan: Don’t forget what you belong to.
I stare at the words, trying to parse the meaning. Is it a warning? A claim? A reminder that I’m tied to them now in ways that can’t be undone?
All of the above, probably.
I type back: I haven’t forgotten anything.
The response comes quick: Good.
