Did I?
I hadn’t even considered that being an option. People either showed up or they didn’t. I wasn’t used to being offered a choice. But something clinked in my chest. A tiny cage door finally fell open.
“Here’s what I think,” Dax said, when I didn’t answer. “Actually—here’s what Iknow. I know you can do this without me in there. I know you’re capable of anything you set your mind to. You’ve spent your whole life being the strongest person in the room—because you had to be. It kept you alive.”
Oof. Right in the gut.
“I don’t have to go in there,” he continued. “I’m technically needed out here. But if you want me to come in, I will. And if you’d rather go in alone, then I’ll be right here, ready to congratulate you when it’s done. I know what this house represents. It’s your war.”
That lump in my throat would need an ice pick soon.
I thought for a moment, chewing my bottom lip.
“I think… I want to do it alone.”
No one in the world would be surprised by that answer—but I was.
“It’s not that I don’t need you,” I added quickly. “Because I think I do.”
I looked down, unable to deal with the intensity of the emotion tornado swirling through my body. I was equally not ready for any brewing reaction his face might be giving away.
“I haven’t always felt like the leader of my life. Even when I didn’t understand why. I don’t want to do this on my own because being on my own feels like the only safe option. I want to fight it on my own so that I can begin to trust myself to take care of me.”
I clenched my mouth shut after my uncomfortable display of vulnerability, but what was it they said about insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different response. I was over my default responses. In fact, they exhausted me. Fear and avoidance had been driving my bus in the wrong direction of life for too long, and it was time to take back the wheel. Which is probably why it felt like I was driving around with an L-plate taped to my forehead and every decision was exhausting.
I looked up from beneath my lashes to see Dax’s mouth curved into a smile that filled his face. It didn’t make me feel completely ill. So that was a start. He said nothing, but his eyes told me everything. No anger. No disappointment. Just the same look he’d given me the night we kissed.
“I’m proud of you,” he whispered, locking my gaze. “You’ve fucking got this.”
I wanted to self-combust on the spot—but I forced myself to stand there facing him.
His fingertips grazed down my arms for the briefest moment, then dropped away.
I turned and walked up the steps to Bellamy House.
Thank God for that thigh-high split—otherwise this might’ve been a deeply ungraceful sideways wriggle.
Looking back over my shoulder, I noticed Dax was still watching.
I grinned so wide I knew my dimple was on full display.
The musty smell hit me the moment I stepped inside. How could it still reek like an old lady’s closet after all this time?
I joined Denis and June in the kitchen, where he was explaining how we could mimic a stovetop fire. My eyes roamed the latched cupboards—finally free of their padlocks—and I felt relief at the thought they’d soon be ashes.
“One of your terms was to set the fire yourself,” Denis said, leaning back against the bench, arms folded across his chest. “Is that still the case?”
I glanced around the kitchen again, but something felt off. That tugging sensation returned—like someone pulling on an invisible thread—and I couldn’t ignore it.
“I do,” I nodded. “I just?—”
The thought emerged as if someone had dropped it from the sky. “This isn’t the right room.”
I paced around the kitchen, processing my own words.
“This way,” I grinned, and I strode back towards the main foyer and up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
I stood with my hands on my hips in the small office at the top of the stairs, its door still stretched out like carpet. This was definitely the place. I felt the burning rage from earlier roll through me like a wave again, but it quickly transformed into some sort of prickling ecstasy. June hovered in the doorway as Denis stepped over the fallen door.
