The drive home is quieter than the drive there, but it's a different kind of quiet. Less suffocating. More like the silence between people who understand each other, who don't need to fill every gap with noise.
When we get back to the house, Emma and Chase still aren't home. Jackson heads to the basement to do whatever hockey players do in their downtime, probably watch game footage or do some kind of workout that would kill a normal person, and I go back to the guest room.
My laptop is still open, job sites still loaded.
I stare at the Hartford Children's Hospital posting for a little while longer. The cursor blinks in the search bar, waiting.
Baby steps,I think, and close the laptop without applying.
But I don't close the browser this time. Don't delete the bookmarks or clear the history. Just leave it there, waiting for when I'm ready.
If I'm ever ready.
Max appears in the doorway, tail high, meowing his opinion on my life choices.
"I know," I tell him. "Baby steps."
He jumps onto the bed and settles in my lap, purring like a motorboat. I scratch behind his ears, and he pushes his head into my hand, demanding more attention.
I lean back against the headboard and close my eyes. For the first time in days, the screaming in my head is quieter. Not gone, it won't be gone for a long time, maybe never, but it’s manageable.
Jackson sees through my act, sees the broken parts I've been trying to hide.
And he's not running.
That terrifies me almost as much as it comforts me.
Because if he sees the worst of me and stays, what does that mean? What happens when he realizes I'm not worth the effort? When he figures out that some people are too broken to fix, that some damage runs too deep?
I've spent three months building walls, constructing a version of myself that can function in the world without falling apart. And in one conversation, Jackson saw through all of it.
The vulnerability of that should send me running, should make me pack my bags and disappear before anyone gets too close.
But I'm tired. So fucking tired.
Tired of running, tired of pretending, tired of carrying all of this alone.
And that's the scariest part. Not that Jackson sees the mess, but that some small, stupid part of me wants to let him. Wants to believe that maybe I don't have to keep all of this locked up inside until it kills me.
Which is ridiculous.Dangerous.The kind of thinking that gets you hurt.
Because people leave, they see the damage, and they leave, or worse, they stay long enough to make you believe they won't, and then they leave anyway.
I know how this story ends. I've lived it before.
So why does some part of me still hope this time might be different?
Max shifts in my lap, stretching out one paw to rest on my arm. His purring is steady, rhythmic, grounding me here in this moment instead of spiraling into all the ways this could go wrong.
Maybe that's all I can do right now. Stay present. Take it one moment at a time.
And try not to think about the fact that Jackson's downstairs, that he looked at me today like I matter, like my broken pieces don't make me impossible to care about.
I try not to think about how much I want that to be true, even though I know better.
7
JACKSON
