I retreat upstairs.Halfway down the hall, I stop.Her door is cracked.Not wide.Not enough to be an invitation.Just enough for me to hear the faint rustle of fabric and the soft, unguarded sound she makes when she stretches sore muscles.The shower’s stopped.The house is wrapped in that strange cocoon of quiet that only happens right after chaos, like everything is holding its breath before it gets busy again.
I should keep walking.I don’t.I knock lightly with one knuckle.
“Yeah?”her voice calls, muffled.
“It’s me,” I say.“Can I come in?”
There’s a pause.“Sure.”
I push the door open and nearly forget how to function.
She’s standing by the bed in one of my old t-shirts and leggings, hair damp and curling around her shoulders, skin still flushed from the shower.No makeup.No armor.
Just Olivia.And she’s devastating.
Her eyes drag over me too, lingering at my chest before snapping back up like she’s scolding herself.We both pretend not to notice.
“How’re you feeling?”I ask, leaning against the doorframe because if I come any closer, my self-control is going to file a formal complaint.
“Sore,” she admits.“Empowered.Mildly homicidal.Is that normal?”
I grin.“Textbook.”
Her smile fades a little as she looks around the room—the neat spare bed, the small pile of donated clothes Aunt Dee has already started assembling, the bag with the few smoky remnants of her old life at the foot of the bed.
The loss hits her again.I see it in the way her shoulders dip, in the shadow that crosses her face.I step in and shut the door behind me, giving us a bubble of quiet away from everyone else.
“Talk to me,” I say gently.
She sits on the edge of the bed, fingers knotting in the hem of her shirt.“It’s stupid.”
“Nothing you feel is stupid.”
She huffs a humorless laugh.“I lost my house.I should be devastated about that.And I am.Kind of.But what keeps bothering me are the little things.My grandma’s teapot.The ridiculous lamp I bought because it looked like a dragon.The stack of letters from the kids I helped at the library.They’re just ...gone.”
Her voice cracks on the last word.Not loud.Not dramatic.Just broken in that honest, quiet way grief sneaks up on you.I move without thinking and drop onto the bed beside her, close enough that our thighs brush.I don’t say “at least you’re alive.”I don’t say “things can be replaced.”
She knows all that.It doesn’t help.
“Yeah,” I murmur.“That shit hurts the most.”
She glances up at me, surprised.“You lost stuff in fires?”
“Not a fire.”I swallow.“After my sister died, my mom got rid of a lot.She couldn’t stand to look at it and remember.I understood but I hated it anyway.”
Silence settles, heavy and comfortable at the same time.
“Will you tell me about her?”she asks softly.
I don’t talk about Rae much.Not because I don’t want to.Because once I start, it feels like ripping open a wound that never quite healed right.But Olivia asks like it’s a gift, not an interrogation.So I give her what I can.
“She was twenty,” I say.“Funny.Loud.And she sang off-key and didn’t care.She loved shitty horror movies and Hot Cheetos.And thought every stray animal was her destiny.But she dated a guy who made her feel small and called it love.”
Olivia’s breath catches.
“By the time we realized what he was, it was already too tangled up,” I continue.“He isolated her.He lied and manipulated.Broke things near her and then broke her, piece by piece.One night, it was bad.The cops came and reports were filed.Promises were made and she got a restraining order.”My jaw tightens until it hurts but I continue.“Two months later, he waited outside her work.”
Olivia’s hand finds mine.She doesn’t squeeze.She just ...holds.
