She hesitates. Just long enough to terrify me.
Then she nods. “Physically, yeah. Still breathing. Still Dax.”
I nod too quickly. I nod like it keeps my lungs working.
And then it sinks in.
She heard from him.
I didn’t.
He crossed into hell, came out the other side, and he still didn’t reach for me. Didn’t check in. Didn’t ask. Didn’t even send a message that could’ve been two words, three syllables:still alive.
The relief blooming in my chest splinters straight through the middle — not joy, not warmth, just a slow, sad kind of burn.
“I’m glad he’s okay,” I whisper. Lola watches me too closely. “I thought maybe he…” I force a breath. “Never mind.”
She doesn’t push.
She just slides the gearstick into park, gets out, and slams the door behind her like she’s shutting out the conversation.
“Come here.”
I step into her arms before my brain can catch up. She holds me with a fierceness that feels like anger and love tangled together, like she’s gathering up all the parts of me he left scattered on that kitchen floor.
Her voice finds my ear, sharp and soft in the same breath. “You don’t have to prove anything, Cass.”
“I know.”
“You don’t owe the world your blood.”
“I know.”
“Then why the fuck are you doing this?”
I don’t answer because the truth is ugly and complicated and carved into bone and maybe I don’t even know anymore.
Lola pulls away first. She always does. She always knows when to give and when to let go. I stand there in her shadow for a moment longer, wishing it could shield me, that it could soften what comes next.
It doesn’t.
She lifts her sunglasses and meets my eyes. And for the first time in a long time, she doesn’t look hard. She looks tired. Like someone who’s watched too many people run straight into the places they’ll be broken.
“Whatever you’re chasing, Cass,” she says quietly, “I hope you find it before it breaks you.”
I try for a smile that doesn’t make it halfway. “Too late.”
Her mouth twitches, not quite a smile, not quite grief. She knows better than to argue because she knows me. Knows exactly what’s written in the cracks of me. Knows what I haven’t said aloud.
The real reason I’m going.
The truth no one’s dragged out of me.
Not her.
Not command.
Not even him.
