Silence stretches between us.
Then she swings her legs off the bed.
“I’m coming with you.”
“You’re not coming,” I say immediately.
She stands.
“I am.”
“No.”
She lifts her chin. Not defiant. Steady.
“I can’t stay here,” she says. “I can’t sit in this cabin knowing she’s where I was.”
“That’s exactly why you’re staying.”
She steps closer.
“I walked out,” she says. “I’m not hiding from it now.”
“You don’t owe anyone that.”
“I owe myself.”
That stops me.
Her hand presses flat against my chest. Not pushing. Grounding.
“I don’t need to go inside,” she says. “I don’t need to see the room. But I need to be there when she walks out.”
Her voice doesn’t shake.
“I need her to see that it doesn’t end in that room. That you can walk out and keep going.”
The words settle heavy in the space between us.
I study her like I’m seeing someone new.
Her pulse is fast beneath my fingers, but her gaze is clear.
“You stay behind me,” I say finally. “You don’t move unless I say.”
She nods.
“And if I tell you to leave, you leave.”
“Okay.”
I don’t like it.
But I see it.
It isn’t recklessness.
This is her taking something back.
