Jane leans back against the barn wall, breathing hard. “I hate being laughed at.”
“I know.”
She blinks at me. “You do?”
“I’ve seen the look you get when someone challenges you,” I say quietly. “Like you’d rather burn than be small.”
Her throat bobs. “My brothers used to say I’d hurt myself trying to prove I didn’t need help.”
I step close enough for her to feel my presence. “And?”
“And they weren’t wrong,” she whispers.
My chest aches because I understand that. I understand the brain that never stops, the noise that’s always there, and the way stillness feels like failure. I know that noise. Different frequency. Same volume.
I wipe the corner of her mouth with my thumb before I can stop myself.
Her breath catches.
So does mine.
I pull my hand back as if I touched something sacred.
“Come on,” I say roughly. “Let’s get you inside.”
She hesitates as pride battles with nausea.
“Can I help you walk?” I ask.
She nods, and I slide my arm around her waist, guiding her toward the cabin.
She leans into me for a moment, then straightens as if she remembers she’s supposed to be wild. But I feel the tremor, the exhaustion. I feel how hard she’s trying. How hard she’s been trying her whole life to be enough, to be wanted, to be chosen instead of just tolerated.
Inside the cabin, I steer her straight to the bathroom. “Sit.”
She does, perching on the toilet lid.
I wet a washcloth and hand it to her.
She wipes her face, her eyes stubbornly dry. “This is humiliating.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
She looks up, startled that I didn’t soften it.
“But it’s not weakness,” I add.
“You don't get it.” Her voice breaks.
“I do.”
Jane shakes her head. “No. I-I do things because it’s easier than sitting still. Because if I sit still, my head gets loud and?—”
She cuts herself off, breathing shallowly.
I reach out and take her hand. “I get it,” I repeat. “More than you think.”
Because my head is loud too. Different noise. Same volume. I learned to build fences against it. She learned to outrun it. Neither way is wrong.
