“I’ve spent the last five years living in fear I’d get that call. The one that tells me Dax stepped on something he shouldn’t have. That they couldn’t find enough of him to send home. That they folded a flag and handed it over with a story and a medal instead of a fucking brother.”
Her voice cracks, jagged and raw.
“I’ve had nightmares so loud they woke the neighbours. Nights where I sat in the hallway outside his old room just to feel close to him — because I didn’t know if I’d ever see his stupid face again.”
She turns to me, eyes wild and wet and broken.
“And now you’re telling me you’re going too? That you’re just going to pack up and throw yourself into danger zones like that won’t gut me?!”
Tears spill hot and fast.
I stand, because sitting feels wrong now, because I don’t know what to say, because what could I possibly say that wouldn’t feel like another wound?
“I thought I’d lost him,” she whispers. “But at least with you… at least you were safe. You were here.”
My throat burns.
“I need you here, Cass. I need one fucking person in my life who isn’t a heartbeat away from disappearing.”
Silence.
Only her breathing — too fast, too loud, too full of fear.
I move to her slowly. Wrap my arms around her even though my own hands are trembling. And for the first time in a long time, I’m the solid one.
“I’m not dying, Lola.”
“But you could.”
“So could anyone. So could you.”
“That’s not the same and you know it,” she whispers into my shoulder. “Don’t give me some poetic bullshit about how we could all get hit by a bus tomorrow. You’re choosing this.”
I hold her tighter. “I’m choosing to do something that matters.”
“And what if it kills you?”
“Then at least it meant something.”
She pulls back, eyes bloodshot, face blotchy. “You mean something to me.”
I can’t speak.
Because that — that breaks me in a way even he couldn’t.
“Please,” she whispers. “Just stay. Stay here. Stay safe. Let him leave. Let the world spin without trying to save it.”
“I’ve been surviving for so long,” I whisper back, “I forgot what it felt like to want more. And now I have the chance.”
“I need you, Cass.”
Her voice is barely there.
“And I need to do this,” I breathe. “I need to prove I’m more than a girl who serves drinks in a dress that makes her feel like she’s drowning.”
She wipes her face with the sleeve of whoever’s shirt she’s wearing and nods, small and fragile and brave.
“Promise me one thing?”
