Compromised.
Not upset. Not rattled. Not tired.
Compromised.
My skin went cold. My throat tightened so fast it made breathing feel like something I had to choose on purpose.
“What happened?” I whispered.
Ellsworth didn’t answer directly, which told me enough.
If he couldn’t say it here—if he wouldn’t—then it was bad.
I looked down at my table. At the images I’d been arranging like my whole life depended on them. At the neat stacks of paper and the fragile, beautiful proof that I was finally stepping forward.
Tomorrow night.
A dream.
A door.
And suddenly it didn’t feel like a door at all.
It felt like a room full of strangers watching while the person I loved was bleeding somewhere out of sight.
“I can’t—” My voice cracked on the words because I didn’t know what I meant.I can’t leave? I can’t lose him? I can’t do both?
Ellsworth’s gaze didn’t flicker. “You can,” he said simply. “And you will.”
My pulse hammered.
I thought of Connor’s face. The way he watched me move through his room like it mattered. The way he had looked at my hands like he trusted them to hold his truth.
I thought of him in some cold, lonely place. Suffering.
I didn’t know details. But I knew Connor.
Men like him didn’t collapse loudly.
They collapsed inward.
And if Ellsworth—Ellsworth, who I’d bet treated emergencies like mild inconveniences—was standing here looking like this, then it was bad.
I swallowed hard.
“I’m coming,” I said.
Amaya looked up from her laptop, expression shifting. “Mila?”
I turned to her, heart racing. “Can you—” My brain scrambled for something practical. Something that would keep the dream alive without me. “Can you tell Élodie I’m stepping out? That—just that I’m stepping out. I’ll explain when I can.”
Amaya’s gaze flicked to Ellsworth, then back to me. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t demand justification.
She just nodded once. “Go.”
I grabbed my bag and my camera on instinct—then hesitated, fingers tightening on the strap.
Did I bring it? Did it matter?
