I force the lie into my voice like it’s a language I was raised on.
“Tragic. Still doesn’t explain the blonde.”
Lola exhales like she’s the one hurting. “Cass?—”
“No,” I snap, sharper than I intend. “Don’t tell me he’s broken. I know what broken looks like. I look in the mirror every morning.”
She goes quiet.
And I hate it.
Because this is the part where I’m supposed to cry, supposed to let the truth leak through the cracks, supposed to admit that her brother shattered something delicate in me I didn’t even realise I had left.
Instead, I stand.
Pour what’s left of my coffee down the sink and watch it swirl the way thoughts do when you’re trying too hard to outrun them.
“Can we not do this?” I whisper. “Can we not act like he was anything but a mistake I let touch me?”
Lola watches me, eyes full of something between pity and guilt, and I swear that combination hurts more than his absence.
“Cass…”
“No,” I say again, softer this time, like the word itself is costing me something. “You want to know what I do want to talk about?”
She nods, cautious, bracing.
“My job.”
She blinks. “What about it?”
“I hate it.”
“You always have.”
“No. I mean I hate it in a way that’s starting to rot me, Lola. Like I can’t tell where the mask ends and I begin anymore. The hands. The eyes. The pretending. Every night I leave feeling dirtier than when I walked in.”
Her face softens. “Then quit.”
I let out a hollow laugh, brittle around the edges. “And do what? Get a degree I can’t afford? Start over when rent’s due next week?”
“You could stay here?—”
“I can’t,” I say, cutting her off. “I can’t keep depending on you to be the one holding me up.”
She opens her mouth, then closes it again, and the weight of what I’m about to say presses against my ribs like a storm gathering.
But I say it anyway.
Because I have to.
“Two years ago, I applied to a volunteer medical programme.”
She freezes. “What?”
“It was a long shot. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t think I’d make it past the first cut. But last week…” I swallow. “I got the call.”
Lola goes still.
