Me:
Everything is being packed. Guys, I need help.
I’d never felt more pathetic or desperate. Almost immediately, Archie’s message appeared:
I’m on my way. Stay put.
Jake:
Dropping the girls off. Then I’m there. Hang tight.
Bubba:
Tell me exactly what you need.
Coop hadn’t responded yet.
I pressed my phone to my chest, closing my eyes for a second. The room felt hollow, echoing, like someone had pulled the heart out of it. My blankets were gone, my desk stripped bare, my memories stacked into cardboard towers I couldn’t reach. And the cats… my cats… my world… already out of sight.
I opened my eyes. The movers didn’t look fazed. They moved like I wasn’t even there, like this was all routine, clinical, and I was just in the way. My throat tightened again, my chest pounding as I tried to steady myself.
The apartment didn’t smell like mine anymore. The scent of their sweat, of dust, and warmer air that came in whenever a door opened, of the kick of ozone in the air conditioning when it cranked on…
Even the roses were gone. The ones I’d been saving carefully and starting to press. At least until I knew who sent them. Had they boxed up the notes too? Who told them what was important and what wasn’t?
I could feel panic rolling up my spine, memories flicking in my mind like a slideshow I couldn’t pause—Jake’s book, Coop’s seashells, the freshman-year photo, Bubba’s holiday program. Everything I loved, my world, being dismantled before me.
The fact a cat should be rubbing against me and informing me loudly and stridently that they were hungry made the tears burn in my eyes. The vet…
They said they took them to the vet. So I immediately dialed my vet’s office… but they were already closed. It kicked over to the recording that said if it was an emergency to reach out to the clinic off the highway. I sucked in a hard breath that actually hurt to fill my lungs.
I finally responded to Bubba.
Me:
I don’t know.
Archie was coming, Jake was coming, Bubba was asking how to help, Coop… nowhere. My heart hammered. My cats, my life, my memories, all in someone else’s hands.
Bubba:
I can call. Want me on the phone until Jake and Arch are there?
Did I?
Before I could answer, the sound of the front door opening carried down the hallway.
Not the careful, polite way the movers had been coming and going. This was decisive. Familiar. Heavy footsteps that didn’t hesitate, didn’t ask permission.
“Frankie?” My name cut through the haze like a blade.
Archie.
Relief and panic slammed into each other inside my chest. I scrambled to my feet just as he appeared at the end of the hallway. He took one look at me—as I pushed up from the carpet, backpack still on, eyes too damp to hide—and then his gaze snapped past me into the bedroom.
And his whole body went rigid.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
