Mr.Novak surveyed the room and sighed, "I have requested this from the police department, but her case isn't a priority right now, and she isn't deemed to be in direct threat from Mr.Brooks.However, with his failure to appear and the bench warrant out, I can ask around and see what can be done."
I forced a smile in his direction.
He gave me a measured nod that read as respect more than pity and stepped toward the door.“I’ll keep you updated, Cassidy.Any movement from the warrant, you’ll hear it from me first.”
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it.He wasn’t warm, exactly, but he was solid, like a bridge that held even in flood.The door shut behind him.The kitchen seemed to exhale, all of us expanding into the space he left.The kettle clicked off.
“Tea,” Mom announced, too brisk, already lining mugs like soldiers.
Dad paced once more and then found his way to the chair beside mine.He didn’t speak.He just set a hand on my forearm, like he needed to be close after everything.
Chase crouched in front of me, doctor eyes on but softer than the fluorescent version.“How are you feeling?Dizzy?Nausea?”he asked.“Headache?”
“Just… empty,” I said, surprised at the truth of it.
“Empty is a normal response to too much adrenaline,” he murmured.“It’ll come back in waves.Let it.You don’t have to make sense today.”He squeezed my knee before standing.
Brody hadn’t moved far.He’d taken the chair kitty-corner to mine, as if to triangulate every edge I might fall off.He didn’t reach for me first; he let the room do its work, the way he always somehow knows when my body needs the village before it needs the man.When my teacup was half-empty and my shoulders had dropped an inch, he slid his chair closer, the legs scuffing the floor, and rested his forearm along the table until our wrists touched.
“You were brave,” he said simply.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, voice small.“He wasn’t even there.”
Brody tipped his head.“You showed up.That’s not nothing, Cass.”
The empty chair rose in my mind, stark as a photograph.“I can't even explain the feeling I experienced having to sit there and wait for him to show,” I admitted.“And Victoria...”I shook my head.“And Max… he shouldn’t have been there.What was she thinking?”
Mom’s mouth pinched.“No,” she said, low.“He shouldn’t.”
“Mr.Novak will note it,” Dad said, practical.“But that child needs people who make good choices.Maybe this is the beginning of that happening.”He glanced toward the window like he could see justice parking at the curb.
The house settled into small, ordinary sounds, spoons tapping mugs, the refrigerator’s gentle hum, the distant creak of the porch swing.
“Fresh air?”Brody asked quietly, thumb brushing my wrist bone.I nodded.
We slipped onto the back porch, two steps down into late-afternoon gold.We sat together, the breeze tickling the hair at the back of my neck.
Brody sighed, breaking the quiet.“If the warrant takes a week or a month, if it takes longer, we’ll keep doing this.We’ll make sure the good days far outnumber the bad.And we will stay honest with each other.Deal?”
I looked over his shoulder to the kitchen window.Inside, my mother laughed at something Clara said and swatted at Adam’s hand when he reached for a cookie too early; Dad opened the back door to let Dean in with a stack of split wood because Dean refused to sit still without contributing somehow; Chase leaned against the island reading the tea box like it held a mystery he could solve with dosage instructions.My people.
“Deal,” I said, and felt the word root.
We stayed until the sun slipped lower and the air cooled, and someone called our names.Back inside, a pot of soup had materialized on the stove, Mom’s chicken orzo, which might as well be a sedative, and the table had been reset with bowls and spoons and that basket of bakery rolls nobody ever admits to buying because everyone wants to pretend they made them.
“Sit,” Mom ordered, not unkindly.“Eat while it’s hot.”
I sat.I ate.Conversation lifted and fell around me, never scraping the raw places.
At some point, Chase pressed a cold glass of water into my hand and arched a brow until I finished it.At another, Dean pulled out his phone to show Mom a photo of a cabinet Brody had restored for a neighbour, and the look she gave Brody over the screen made something soft break open in my chest.Pride can be its own medicine.
When the bowls were empty and the room had warmed a few degrees with the steam and the people, Dad tapped his spoon against his glass like it was Christmas and we were fourteen.“All right,” he said, clearing his throat.“Here’s what happens next, for those of us who need lists.”He meant me...and probably Chase.“We wait for Mr.Novak to call.We live our lives in the meantime.We walk Cassidy to the mailbox when she wants company, and we pretend not to watch out the window when she wants to go alone."There was a soft chuckle that sprinkled across the room."We don’t give that man more of our life than he’s already taken.”
A chorus of “hear, hear” rose because my family loves a plan.
After we cleared the dishes, Brody tugged me into the living room where the old couch waited with its familiar sag.I sank into the corner, and he folded himself in beside me, an easy fit we’d learned without talking.I tucked my toes under his thigh.He rested his palm low on my shin, thumb moving, a metronome for my breath.
“You, okay?”he murmured, close enough that his voice felt like it came from inside my chest.
