The new routine took some getting used to.
She came every day after work, helped Lily with homework. She insisted on cooking actual meals. She messaged me to remind about meds and ice packs and bedtime schedules. She bathed Lily without making it feel like a big deal.
Not once did she make me feel incompetent.
She just… helped.
And watching her with Lily, it did something to me I wasn’t ready for.
The gentleness and patience.
The familiarity.
Like a piece of our old life stepping carefully back into mine.
One night, Lily tugged on her sleeve. “Stay for stories?”
Claire looked hesitant, glancing at me. “Only if your uncle wants me to.”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah. Stay.”
We all squeezed onto Lily’s tiny bed on her insistence, Claire on one side, me on the other, Lily curled between us like a little anchor binding us.
I opened a book, but Lily asked me to “tell one of your made-up ones.”
So, I did.
Some nonsense about a dragon who couldn’t sneeze fire unless someone tickled him behind the ears. Lily giggled into Claire’s side, and Claire tried, and failed not to smile.
And I felt a shift.
A warmth in the room that wasn’t coming from the bedside lamp.
When I risked a glance at Claire, I’m surprised, she wasn’t looking at Lily.
She was watching me.
Not with bitterness or anger. Just… surprised. Maybe even a little unsure.
Like she was seeing a version of me she didn’t expect.
Chapter 39
Flashback
Claire
The memory hits me before I can stop it.
I see him at seventeen, leaning against the hood of that beat-up truck he loved more than common sense, tossing his keys up like he didn’t have a worry. That careless grin, sun in his hair, acting like rules were optional.
“Let’s skip class,” he’d said, smirking at me. “Come on, Claire, don’t be boring.”
I remember pretending to be annoyed even while my heart did that stupid little leap.
I was easy for him in a way I’ve never been for anyone else.
Then all the other memories slide in, uninvited:
