"You didn't kill Lily," he says eventually, quiet but certain. I want to argue, but he keeps talking. “You know what happened. You’ve gone over it a hundred times. It wasn’t your fault.”
"It doesn't feel right." The words are muffled against his chest.
"I know. But feelings aren't facts." He pulls back just enough to look at me, his hands cupping my face, thumbs brushing away tears. "And what happened with your supervisor, that wasn't your fault either. He raped you. You didn't let anything happen. He took your choice away."
"I froze." Shame burns through me. "I just froze like…"
"That's a normal trauma response." His voice is firm. "Fight, flight, or freeze. Your body chose to freeze to protect you. That doesn't make you weak or a coward or anything else you're telling yourself. It makes you human."
I want to argue, want to list all the ways I failed, all the things I should have done differently. But I'm too tired, too wrung out, too empty.
"I don't know how to come back from this," I whisper, my voice breaking. "I don't know how to be okay again, or if I even will be."
"You start with one day. One hour. One minute." His hand comes up to cup my face again, his touch gentle. "And you let people help you. Real help. Therapy with someone who specializes in trauma, maybe even support groups if you want them. Whatever you need."
"I can't afford therapy. I don't have insurance anymore, I don't have a job?—"
"I'll pay for it."
"Jackson—"
"I'll pay for it," he repeats, firm and final. "No arguments. You need help, and I'm going to make sure you get it."
More tears, different this time, not despair but something else, something that feels like hope even though hope hurts when you've gone so long without it.
"Why?" The question comes out broken, desperate. "Why do you care so much? I'm nothing, I'm nobody, I'm just your sister's fucked-up friend who can't get her shit together?—"
"Stop." His voice is sharp enough to cut through my spiral. "You're not nothing. You're not nobody." His eyes search mine, green and clear and full of something I'm afraid to name. "You're Maya. You're the girl who used to make my mom laugh so hard she'd cry. You're the nurse who saved dozens of kids before one tragedy you couldn't prevent. You're the person who shows up for the people she loves even when she's barely holding it together herself."
"I'm not that person anymore."
"Yes, you are. You're still in there." His thumb brushes my cheekbone. "You're still shining, Stardust, even when you can'tsee it. Even when you think the light's gone out. You're still shining."
I close my eyes and lean into his hand; the warmth of his palm against my face is the most real thing I've felt in months.
"I'm scared," I whisper.
"I know."
"I'm scared I'll never be okay again, that I'll always freeze when someone touches me. That I'll never be able to work as a nurse again. That I'll wake up every night for the rest of my life seeing Lily's face and feeling his hands on me."
"Maybe you will." His honesty cuts through the pretty lies I've been telling myself. "Maybe some of that never goes away. But maybe it gets easier. Maybe you learn to live with it. Maybe you find a way forward that looks different than the way back."
"What if I can't?"
"Then we figure it out together." His voice is steady, certain. "You're not doing this alone anymore. No more hiding, no more pretending, no more suffering in silence. You tell me when you're struggling. You let me help. And when you can't talk to me, you talk to a therapist who actually knows what they're doing."
A laugh bubbles up, watery and broken. "You make it sound so simple."
"It's not simple. It's going to be hard as hell." He pulls back to look at me properly. "But you're not alone in it. That's the difference."
We sit on the bathroom floor for what feels like forever, Jackson holding me, me trying to remember how to breathe without the weight of everything crushing my lungs. Eventually, the tears stop, the shaking subsides, and I'm left feeling empty but somehow lighter, like I've purged something toxic from my system.
"Can you stand?" he asks.
I nod, and he helps me up, steadying me when my legswobble from sitting on the cold floor for so long. He kicks the blade toward the corner where I can't easily reach it, then leads me out of the bathroom.
Max has returned to the bed, curled in the center as if nothing happened, like he didn't abandon me during the nightmare. Jackson picks him up gently and moves him aside.
