“Proud of you.”
“Don’t,” she says immediately, sharper.
I hold up both hands. “Okay. No being proud allowed.”
Her gaze slides to me again, less sharp now, more tired. “I don’t need you to—” She trails off, jaw working like she’s swallowing something hard. “I don’t need you to act like I’m a toddler.”
“I’m not,” I say softly. “I’m acting like you’re someone I care about.”
The words hang there.
They’re not a confession. Not a declaration.
Just truth.
Sloane looks away first.
“Are you staying tonight?” she asks, voice low.
I’ve moved most of my stuff back to the football house, just because I keep feeling like I’m in the way sometimes, but she hasn’t wanted to sleep by herself a single night yet. “If you want me to.”
She nods once, barely there. “Yeah.”
I shift closer without thinking too hard about it, letting my thigh brush hers under the blanket.
Sloane doesn’t flinch.
Instead, she lets her head tip back against the couch cushion, eyes closing like she’s trying to remember how to rest.
I watch her for a second too long.
Her lashes are still damp. The faint dark circles around her eyes don’t belong to a girl who’s supposed to be finishing out her junior year of college.
It belongs to a girl who held her father’s hand while he disappeared.
A girl who screamed until she couldn’t anymore.
A girl who’s been hollowed out and is somehow still standing.
My hands curl into fists on my knees.
I want to fix it.
I can’t.
So I do the only thing I know how to do.
I get up.
Sloane’s eyes flick open, instantly alert. “Where are you going?”
“Kitchen,” I say. “Tea?”
She hesitates, like she wants to say no on principle, then quietly, “Okay.”
I keep my movements steady, calm. Like the house isn’t still haunted by an absence. Like I’m not terrified of the wrong sound breaking her open.
The kettle goes on. I grab the chamomile she keeps in the cabinet because she pretends it’s for “stress,” but it’s really because Pops used to drink it at night and call it his old-man tea.
