My heart slams against my ribs.
She doesn’t say a word.
Just grabs an empty tray, scoops up a ladle, and stations herself beside me like it’s the most natural thing in the galaxy.
I don’t even breathe.
The kids go nuts.
“Miss Kairo!”
“Look! She’s here!”
“Did you bring dessert?”
“Is Ben with you?!”
She shakes her head, laughing softly, and starts helping with the plates like this is her kitchen. Her sleeves rolled, her hair loose, her hands careful but fast.
I can barely keep up.
“I thought—” I start.
“Don’t think,” she says, still not looking at me. “Just serve.”
And so I do.
With her beside me, shoulder to shoulder, wordless and steady, I serve.
The moon climbs higherby the time the kids are finally down.
A few demanded two bedtime stories. One tried to con me into a third by faking a nightmare—poorly. I played along, gave him my pillow, and told him the monster under his bed wasunionized and wouldn’t work off-hours. He laughed himself to sleep.
Now, the halls are quiet. Lights low. The hum of the generator purring like a lullaby.
Kairo’s standing at the rooftop door when I get there.
She doesn’t turn when I step up beside her. Just hands me a stimcup, steaming with some kind of herbal mix. I take it.
The rooftop is open, flat, edges lined with old solar panels and potted moss walls that keep the wind down. It smells like rain and stone and the faintest memory of lavender from the garden beds two floors down.
She finally speaks.
“I used to think love was a choice you made once,” she says, voice soft. “You meet someone. You fall. You commit. That’s it.”
I nod. “Simple.”
“It’s not.”
“No.”
Kairo exhales slowly, looking up at the stars scattered like broken sugar across a dark velvet sky.
“Turns out love’s a choice you make every damn day. Every second. Even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s terrifying.”
I stay quiet. Let her talk.
“I hated you,” she says, almost like she’s apologizing to the sky. “For years, I hated you for leaving. For not choosing us. But then you did choose us, and I didn’t know what to do with that either.”
