I don’t answer straight away. Not because I’m suspicious, but because my brain is still inbanter mode, reaching for something clever, something deflective. Hypotheticals are usually easy. You keep them abstract. You keep them safe.
I glance at her, expecting a grin. A follow-up. Something to tell me this is still light.
She’s watching the city instead.
Waiting.
“If someone wanted to bait me,” I say slowly, rolling it around like it’s a joke I’m not sure lands, “they’d promise certainty.”
That gets her attention. Not a reaction – a focus shift.
“Certainty how?” she asks.
I shrug, casual. “Control. A clean edge. Information before it’s dangerous. The illusion that if I just do the right thing, nothing bad will happen to the people I care about.”
I hear myself as I say it and don’t stop.
“They’d offer protection,” I continue. “Not real protection – just enough that it feels irresponsible to refuse. A way to think you’re choosing safety instead of being manoeuvred.”
Her fingers are still on the remote. Not gripping it. Not tapping. Just…there.
I laugh softly, trying to pull it back. “Which is why it wouldn’t work. I don’t trust easy outs.”
She turns her head then. Looks at me properly.
“And if it wasn’t easy?” she asks.
That lands. I hesitate for the first time.
“If it was wrapped in patience,” I say. “If it looked like space. Time. The chance to breathe before the next hit.”
I trail off.
The words hang between us, suddenly heavier than they should be. I can feel the shape of them rearranging themselves into something I don’t like.
Her voice stays even. “What if they didn’t threaten anything at all?”
I swallow.
“What if,” she goes on, “they just waited for you to step into it on your own?”
That’s when it clicks.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just a quiet alignment of facts that have been sitting in front of me since I walked into the room with too much food and too much confidence.
I stop talking.
Kayla doesn’t look at me.
She doesn’t need to.
She asked the question because she already knows the answer.
And she’s known it longer than I have.
I sit back against the headboard once more, the humour draining out of me in stages rather than all at once. It’s not panic. Panic is loud. This is a calm recognition. Resignation, even.
“You’re not asking about me,” I say.
