I step back out, shutting her door softly.
The shower keeps running.
Her crying stays hidden in it.
I return to the living room and lower myself onto the couch, leg throbbing, heart heavier than my body can hold.
One crutch.
One small step.
Hospice in the house.
Two truths existing at once.
And for the first time since my injury, I understand something with brutal clarity: progress doesn’t always mean clean steps forward.
Sometimes it just means you’re still standing while everything crashes down around you.
12
SLOANE
The shower is the only place I can fall apart without an audience.
It’s the only place Iletmyself lose control.
Steam fogs the mirror, turning my reflection into a blur—featureless, anonymous. The water is hot enough to sting, but I keep it there anyway because pain is easier when it’s physical. Predictable. Contained. Something I can turn on and off.
Grief doesn’t turn off.
Grief just waits until you’re alone and then tries to drown you quietly.
I press my forehead to the tile and let my breath shake out in short bursts, swallowed by the rush of water. I don’t sob. I don’t scream. I don’t do anything dramatic.
I just…leak.
Because I don’t have time for a breakdown. If I fall apart, who’s going to hold this house up?
Not Cameron, he’s already halfway out the door every time the air gets heavy.
Not Pops, he’s the reason the air is heavy.
And Logan?—
Nope.
Absolutely not.
I turn the water colder until my skin protests. It forces my brain back into my body. Forces control.
I shut the water off and wrap myself in a towel, standing there for a second with my palms pressed to my face.
Okay. Okay, Sloane. Get it together.
The hallway is cool against my damp skin. The house is too quiet—thin in that way that makes everything feel like it could shatter if you breathe wrong.
Pops’s bedroom door is shut.
