“It cost me everything,” I say.
“Then why didn’t you fight harder?”
The question sits between us like a live wire.
Because I saw the way you looked when they told us he was alive, and the man who walked out of that operation was everything I’ll never be. I’ve been living in his shadow ever since, and I couldn’t imagine a version of this where you didn’t choose him.
I don’t say any of that.
“I thought I was making it easier for you,” I say instead.
She’s quiet for a long moment. “You were making it easier for yourself.”
Not unkind. Just honest.
And I don’t have an answer for that. Because she might be right.
Nikita meets me at the door with a single, disgusted meow. Then she turns and stalks off like I’ve already failed her.
“Missed you too,” I say, closing the door behind me.
The Denver air is sharp. The chill seeps into the corners of the apartment, clings to the floorboards. After LA, it feels like stepping into a memory. My shoulder twinges as I shrug off my jacket. Cold always makes it worse. I roll it gently, fingers pressing into the scar tissue.
The wound isn’t open anymore. But it still remembers.
So do I.
I head for the kitchen. Nikita’s already sitting next to her bowl like I’m two hours late for an apology.
“Don’t act like you were starving,” I mutter. “You had food. And probably more attention than I did.”
She chirps once. A sound that says you abandoned me in fluent feline.
I open the fridge and toss some shredded chicken into her dish. She eats it with regal disdain, but it’s still forgiveness in slow motion.
I grab a glass of water. Lean on the counter. Try to ignore how the quiet is suddenly so loud.
Her name isn’t in the room. But the echo of her is. Even after three months, it lingers like a song I can’t get out of my head.
Nikita used to curl up on Nina’s lap whenever she came over. Purring loud enough to shake the cushions. Nina would scratch under her chin and tell her she was the only one who understood her.
She said it like a joke, but I always knew it wasn’t.
“She missed you,” I say quietly. Nikita flicks her tail but keeps eating.
I sip the water, then go to the shelf where the photo still sits.
The four of us in the snow. Me, Nina, Mason, Callie. Mason’s arm slung around Callie’s waist. Nina pressed into my side. My smile too wide. Her eyes bright.
That was the day I stepped in front of a bullet. The day I realized how much it would wreck me to lose her even though we’d known each other for barely forty-eight hours.
That was also the day she said she believed in fate.
I hadn’t said anything in response at the time—too busy bleeding on the snowy ground. But the pain had faded to the background when she kissed me. I kissed her back like she’d just handed me a piece of my future.
I’m not sure I’ve stopped thinking about it since.
Fate.
