I glance up and catch a flicker of something across the room. Knox and Sloane standing near the food table but not quite together. They’re close, but not touching. Sloane says something without meeting his eye, and he just nods. I clock it and look away.
They look as though a thousand unspoken things sit between them. Yet neither of them walks away. It hits me harder than it should. That kind of loyalty. That kind of quiet, tangled tether. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that.
“I don’t think so, Mags.” The words feel thick, as if I’m swallowing something I don’t want to say. I hate how it stings. Hate that I even considered saying yes.
Before I know it, I’m shoving the chair back and standing. “I need to go.”
The words leave my mouth too fast, too sharp, as though if I don’t get out of here now, I’ll shatter. My pulse drums in my ears,hot and frantic. Maggie doesn’t argue. She just picks up the tray of cinnamon rolls and pushes them toward me.
“Take them.”
I shake my head. I don’t deserve that kindness. Not when all I’ve done is keep my distance.
“Take them,” she says again, but this time her voice is softer. Warmer. As if she sees straight through every wall I’ve tried to keep up today.
My chest squeezes. I nod, but I can’t speak. My throat is too tight as my hands tremble when I take the foil tray as though it might burn me. My armor is cracked wide open, and I hate it.
I came here to keep the peace. To do the right thing. For my dad, for James, maybe even for Malachi. But everything today has reminded me how much I don’t belong here.
The worst part?
I want to. To feel a part of this.
I want to joke with Maggie the way I used to. To lean into James’s hugs without pulling away too soon. I want to sit on the porch with the old ladies and listen to their stories and laughter, not feel as though I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But how can I, when everything that’s ruined my life is tied up in this place?
My father’s downward spiral started here. My stolen future, my shattered credit, the quiet lies I only just uncovered. They all trace back to this world. To this patch. He didn’t just drink away our stability; he stole my identity. Opened accounts in my name before I was old enough to understand what that meant. Ruined my credit before I even had a chance to build it. It’s why I couldn’t open a bank account. Why every dollar I earned had to be hidden in cash, buried as contraband in my own bedroom. Because trusting him, or anything with his name on it, meant gambling everything.
And yet…
I still ache to be seen by him. To be claimed by something. To not be alone.
What kind of masochist does that make me?
I clutch the tray tighter and walk out without another word before I can change my mind and do something stupid. Such as stay.
Because for half a second, I would have. If Malachi had said the right thing while looking at me the way he did earlier, maybe asked me to? God, I don’t even know. But I would’ve stayed.
The cinnamon rolls sit on the passenger seat, sweet and warm and unwanted, a damn ghost.
The hum of a tune stirs in my throat. I swallow it down. No lyrics today. Not when the ache feels too raw.
I glance at them again as I turn out of the parking lot, throat burning.
Why did I take them? Why did I let Maggie’s kindness crack me open like that?
I grip the wheel harder, my knuckles aching from how tight I’m holding on. The smell of sugar and cinnamon still lingers in the air, clinging to me, steeped in guilt.
This whole day was a mistake.
And yet, some part of me—some small, traitorous part—whispers that it wasn’t.
That maybe I needed today.
Maybe I wanted it.
I blink hard against the sting behind my eyes. When I was little, I used to love watching the club’s rides from the porch. I’d sit cross-legged with a popsicle in one hand and my sketchbook in the other, counting the bikes as they rumbled down the street, thunder in motion. My dad would wave from the front of the line, proud and tall, a hero pulled straight from a movie.
