A text.
Unknown number at first glance—until I see the name attached.
Logan.
Logan: out in twenty. you okay?
My throat tightens.
I don’t respond.
Not because I don’t want to.
Because I don’t know what words are supposed to look like in a world where my dad is dead.
I push the phone away and rest my forehead on the table.
The wood is cool under my skin.
The silence is loud.
—
An hour later, Jade and Blakely show up like a small storm.
I hear their voices before I see them—bright, forced, overcompensating. The front door opens, and then Jade is inthe kitchen with a grocery bag, with Blakely behind her with a stack of DVDs like it’s 2009, and they’ve decided nostalgia is the cure.
“Sloane Rhodes,” Jade announces dramatically. “We are hereby kidnapping you.”
I don’t move.
Blakely sets the DVDs onto the counter. “We brought reinforcements.”
Jade pulls out a pint of ice cream. “Chocolate.”
Then another. “Cookie dough.”
Then another. “Whatever this is—something with fudge and depression.”
I blink at her.
Jade pauses. Her smile falters.
She steps closer, lowering her voice. “Hey.”
I look up.
Her expression softens into something real. Something that doesn’t pretend.
“We’re not here to fix it,” she says quietly. “We’re just…here.”
My throat tightens.
Blakely nods behind her. “We’re gonna do a movie afternoon. You don’t have to talk. You don’t have to laugh. You don’t have to be okay.”
Jade lifts a brow. “But you do have to sit on the couch and let us aggressively love you.”
Something in my chest shifts. Not relief. Not healing.
