“Helping.” Jenna says brightly, bless her, waving a handful of napkins. “She’s been restocking. MVP.”
Dad’s eyes soften a fraction when they land on her, then harden again when they return to me. “Stick close.” He says. “It’s getting late. I don’t want you getting jostled.”
Jostled. As if that’s the worst thing that could happen here.
“I’m fine,” I say. The words are automatic and not entirely true. Fine is not the word for a girl with a secret stamped on her skin.
He follows my glance without meaning to, and for a breath my blood turns to ice. Because his gaze ends where mine would have if I hadn’t yanked it away. On Triston.
Nothing changes in my dad’s face, not yet. But something in the air does. An alertness. The feel of a storm pattern shifting.
“I’ll be right here.” I tell him, because I need him to keep moving, to go back to whatever conversation he came from, to not stand here with the weight of his worry pressing so hard it leaves bruises. He studies me a bit longer, then nods and disappears into the living room where the coaching staff has staked a claim on the sofas.
My lungs finally unclench. When I look again, Triston is gone.
A second later, my phone hums.
Don’t lose that look. Come stand by the window.
I don’thavea look. I almost text that back, my fingers itching with the urge to argue with the man who could bring me to my knees without laying a hand on me. But the truth is my face gives me away, always has. I’m an open book bound in soft paper. He reads me fluently.
I angle myself toward the back windows as casually as I can. The glass is a dark mirror that throws me back at myself: hair a little mussed, mouth a little swollen, eyes… not the same eyes Ileft the house with tonight. There’s a shadow outside that could be a tree or the night holding its breath. I feel watched and strangely steadied by it.
You did well.
Stay where you are.
“I swear, if I find one more cup on a bookshelf.” Jenna says, but her voice is distant now, like it’s reaching me down a long hallway.
I shouldn’t like how the text lands. I shouldn’t glow under praise that would have made me bristle from anyone else. But the cork inside me that has kept everything tight, controlled, quietly grieving for a year… it loosened out there under the stars. It hasn’t rolled back into place.
A guy from the team swoops in with a fratty grin and tries to spin me toward the dance floor. “C’mon, Coach’s kid, one song for the memories.” He says, already assuming yes. I press my cup against his chest and shake my head. “Maybe later.” I told him. He laughs and glides away to someone less complicated.
Another text. He must be only a few feet away, and somehow it feels like he’s worlds.
I told you, only me.
My heart stutters and then finds a new rhythm to obey. I stare hard at the glass so I won’t turn around and give away that every nerve in me is lit. It’s ridiculous. It’s dangerous. It makes every nerve in me hum. My reflection meets my eye as if to say: you’re already in it; stop pretending you aren’t.
“Sam?” My dad again. Soft this time. Closer. I school my face and turn. He’s not alone. The assistant coach stands with him,talking about line changes, but Dad’s eyes are only on me. The question in them is simple and impossible:Are you okay?
“Yes.” I say, and find that somehow, in a way that doesn’t make sense, I mean it. “Do you need anything?”
He starts to say no, then stops. The muscle in his jaw ticks. “Keep your phone on you.” He says, like we’re twelve again and this house hasn’t changed, like rules can still keep the night at bay. “Text me if you go upstairs.”
Upstairs. The word is a cliff edge between us. I nod because that’s what good daughters do, and he lets himself be turned back to the conversation he left, but not before his gaze scans over my shoulder again. I don’t follow it this time, but I feel who it lands on. The way a compass settles.
I move because I have to. Standing in one place makes me a lighthouse; too many eyes can find me. I drift along the edge of the room where the wall catches my shoulder and turns me, letting me map the party by touch. From the rough frame of the family photo I refuse to look at tonight, to the smooth curve of the banister, the dips and peaks of the music like an ocean.
By the time I reach the archway to the hallway, there’s a body leaning there like it belongs. It does.
“Don’t go far.” Triston says, quiet enough that the music swallows the words before they reach anyone else. He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t have to. My body registers him anyway, the way a tide changes with the moon.
“I’m not.” The truth of it surprises me. Maybe I used to be a runner. Maybe whatever I am now wants to be caught.
He looks at me like I’m a problem he already solved. His gaze tracks my mouth, then lifts to my eyes with that slow, knowing patience I am beginning to learn is a language of its own. “Drink water.” He says, and the ordinary instruction lands like a caress because it’shisvoice giving it. He tips his chin toward the kitchen. “Then the back hallway.”
“My dad—”
