“Yes.”
“And you’re not afraid.”
I think about the room. I think about the chair and the way the very air shifted when I refused to obey the ghost of my own trauma. “I am,” I say honestly. “Just not in the way he expects me to be.”
We start walking again, the rhythm of our steps synchronising. This time, Damien reaches for my hand. I let him take it. I don’t do it because I need grounding or because I’m afraid I’ll float away into the night. I do it because I am choosing connection over isolation.
And somewhere behind us, in that building that thought it still owned the architecture of my silence, something finally understands a truth it never planned for. I didn’t come back todisappear. I came back to learn how to leave without asking for permission.
Damien doesn’t let go of my hand as we move through the city. His grip is tight, his thumb brushing my knuckles in a repetitive, anxious motion, as if he’s checking for a pulse that might vanish the moment he looks away. He walks half a step ahead of me now—not pulling me along, but guarding me, treating the city itself like a threat he no longer trusts.
“You didn’t tell me everything,” he says, his voice tight. It isn’t an accusation; it’s the observation of a man who knows the woman beside him has developed a hidden interior.
The street stretches long and empty ahead of us, the dark shopfronts reflecting a version of us that looks almost normal—two lovers walking home—if you don’t know the history of the room I’ve just left.
“I don’t have all of it yet,” I reply.
He glances at me sharply. “That’s not what I asked.”
I stop walking. He stops too, instantly, turning to face me with his eyes scanning my expression as if bracing for a physical blow.
“I didn’t sit,” I repeat, the words firm. “I didn’t obey. I didn’t let him narrate me.”
“I know,” he says.
“But I did something else.”
Silence drops between us, thick and expectant.
“I learned how much of that place still lives in me,” I continue. “Not because he put it there, but because it worked once. Because my body remembers what kept me alive when I was small.”
Damien’s jaw tightens. “And?”
“And I’m not interested in pretending that part of me doesn’t exist anymore.”
That is when he flinches. It’s just a fraction of a movement, but in a man like Damien, it’s a seismic shift.
“Raven,” he says, his voice dropping into a careful, clinical tone, “some things don’t need to be integrated. They need to be burned out.”
I look at him—really look at him, seeing the protector who is beginning to fear the person he’s protecting. “At some point,” I say quietly, “burning things down starts to look a lot like erasing yourself.”
His grip loosens. It isn’t a rejection, but a recalibration. He’s realising he’s holding onto someone he no longer fully understands.
We start walking again, slower this time. The phone vibrates in my pocket. I don’t stop. Damien feels it anyway; he always feels the ghost of River.
“Don’t,” he says.
“I won’t,” I reply.
It is the truth. I don’t take the phone out. I let the vibration exist as a background noise, a distant hum that I refuse to let steer my heart. The vibration stops. Damien exhales, a long, shaky breath.
“You’re not afraid of him anymore,” he says, though it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
“I am,” I answer. “Just not in a way that makes me small.”
We reach the car. He unlocks it and waits until I’m safely inside before getting in himself. The engine hums to life, a familiar, grounding roar. He doesn’t pull away into the street immediately.
“What happens now?” he asks, his eyes fixed on the steering wheel.
