Dee.
I don’t answer. I can’t.
She crosses the room in three careful steps, sits next to me on the edge of the bed, and doesn’t say anything at first. She wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me in.
That does me in completely. I cry harder.
Not the silent movie kind. The real, ugly kind. The kind where your nose runs and your chest hurts and your whole body feels like it’s collapsing in on itself.
“I’m sorry,” I manage, voice all shredded and wet. “I didn’t mean… I’m just… I don’t know how to…”
“Hey.” She brushes my hair back gently. “Don’t apologize. Just breathe, okay?”
We sit there for a while. Me crying. Dee being the one person in the world who doesn’t ask anything of me except to keep breathing.
Eventually, when my sobs taper off to hiccups and shallow breaths, she hands me a tissue and says, “Let’s go for a walk.”
I nod, throat tight.
It’s still early enough that the air outside is crisp and quiet. The town’s just starting to wake up, and the sunlight hasn’t fully burned off the morning fog. We walk in silence toward the trail that winds along the bluff above the valley.
Dee doesn’t push. She walks beside me, hands stuffed into her jacket pockets, like she’s been waiting for this moment all along.
We reach Summit Ridge Overlook. The same place I was with Knox not so long ago, when everything felt so much easier.
I stop at the edge and let the wind hit my face.
And then I say it.
It spills out of me.
“I’m pregnant.”
Dee turns to me slowly. Her eyes are wide, but she doesn’t say anything yet. She just processes it.
“With Knox,” I add. “Obviously.”
She lets out a slow breath. “Oh.”
And then she does the one thing I didn’t expect.
She hugs me again. Fierce this time. Protective.
“Okay,” she says, voice steady. “Okay. We’ll figure this out.”
I laugh. A watery, broken little laugh. “I haven’t even told him yet. I was going to. And then that stupid video blew up, and now everyone’s watching and speculating and, wow, I don’t even know who I am to him. What we are.”
Dee pulls back but keeps her hands on my shoulders. “You’reyou. And Knox? For all his grumpy, growly, emotionally constipated behavior, he’s not stupid. He sees you. I know he does.”
I want to believe that. I do.
But I also saw the way he froze when those influencers swarmed The Marrow. The way the tension pulled tight in his shoulders, how he retreated into himself.
I know it wasn’t his fault—it overwhelmed him, too. Still, maybe this kind of attention is just part of who he is now, no matter how much he hates it. NFL golden boy turned reluctant public figure, trying to carve out quiet in a world that won’t stop watching.
“I don’t want to be some secret,” I whisper. “Or some scandal. I don’t want our kid to grow up in a world where everything is performative. I just want real. And I don’t know if Knox can give me that. I mean, all ofthis... this is his life, right? The spotlight, the press, everyone talking about him. It just took me a moment to realize that.”
Dee’s eyes soften. “Then tell him. Tell him everything. And if he can’t show up for you and that baby, then he’s not who you thought he was. But you’ll still have me. And Maya. Gracie too. And Mom, even if she’s always been a little chaotic.”
