“It’s not your fault.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re still learning. You forgot to ground. It happens?—”
“I ruined everything.” Her voice was raw. “I finally got the promotion. I finally felt like I wasenough. And then I destroyed it in front of everyone because I can’t control myself.”
“You’re learning to control abilities you didn’t know you had three weeks ago. That’s not failure. That’s?—”
“Maybe Derek was right.” The words came out hollow. “Maybe I am too much. Too emotional. Tooeverything. Maybe I just ruin things.”
“Cassie—”
“I need to be alone.” She was already reaching for the door handle. They were only a few blocks from home. She could walk. She needed to walk. She needed to not be in this car with this man who kept showing up and seeing her at her worst.
“Let me drive you home, at least.”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s two miles.”
“I need the air.”
She was out of the car before he could argue, walking fast, not looking back. She heard him call her name once, then the car door close, then nothing.
The walls would probably be gray when she got home.
That was fine.
Gray felt about right.
7
BLOWUP. MELTDOWN. FALLOUT
The Willowbrook Farmers Market was, under normal circumstances, one of Cassie’s favorite places.
Fresh produce. Homemade pies. That one booth with the honey guy who always gave her extra samples because she’d helped his daughter with a resume once. It was wholesome and predictable and exactly the kind of low-stakes outing that shouldn’t have made her want to crawl under her bed and never emerge.
But that was before the “incident.”
Before Marjorie’s Facebook post that somehow made “medical leave” sound like “committed to an asylum.” Before the neighborhood group chat that Cassie wasn’t part of but Diane screenshotted religiously started buzzing with speculation about “whatreally happened at her office.” Before her carefully constructed invisibility shattered into a thousand glittering, floating, impossible-to-explain pieces.
“You don’t have to do this,” Liam said from beside her, scanning the crowd like a bodyguard assessing threats. They’d barely spoken since she walked home from the car three days ago, but he’d insisted on coming. “We can go back. Stock up at the grocery store like normal people.”
“I’m not hiding.” She adjusted her sunglasses—ridiculous, given the overcast sky, but they made her feel marginally less exposed. “I refuse to let Marjorie’s poison pen make me a hermit.”
“There’s a difference between hiding and strategic retreat.”
“I’m getting tomatoes. And pie. And I’m going to smile at everyone like I didn’t turn Dana’s phone into a satellite a week ago.”
The market was crowded with Saturday morning enthusiasm. Families with strollers. Couples holding hands over organic kale. Dogs in bandanas being very good boys near the treat booth. It should have been charming.
Instead, Cassie felt every sidelong glance like a physical touch.
There she is. The one who had the breakdown. The one who made things float.
She grabbed a basket and marched towardthe vegetable stands with the grim determination of a woman who would buy produce or die trying.
