The light in her room stayed on, and I didn’t see either of them for forty-eight minutes until he climbed back out.
I watched him replace the screen carefully, almost tenderly. Watched him pause at the window with his hand pressed against the screen. Then I saw her hand appear on the other side.
Then he was gone, jogging behind the house across the yard.
I sat there alone in the dark, engine still off. My chest felt tight. My jaw ached from clenching. But my mind was calm. Clear.
Because whatever just happened in that room changed the equation.
It’s morning now, and I’m leaning against a brick wall near the library, watching Tigerlily walk across campus.
She looks different in daylight. The tension she carries at her house—the way she hunches her shoulders, keeps her head down, moves like she’s trying to disappear—it’s gone. Her backpack slips off one shoulder, and she adjusts it without thinking, tucking her hair behind her ear as she walks.
She’s not looking over her shoulder, not scanning for threats.
She’s just a girl walking to class.
That realization hits harder than it should.
I watch her stop at the campus café. I see Callum appear from the opposite direction like they planned this. Like they coordinated when and where to meet.
Interesting.
The way she smiles at him makes my chest constrict.
It’s not the careful smile she gives me—the one that’s grateful and uncertain and a little bit scared. This smile is easy. Unguarded. She leans into him when he says something, laughs with her whole body, touches his arm without thinking about it.
Comfortable.
She’s comfortable with him in a way she’s never been with me.
I’m too far away to hear what they’re saying, but I don’t need to. I can read it in her body language. In the way she blushes when he hands her a coffee. She doesn’t flinch when he gets close.
This isn’t what I thought it was.
She’s not using Callum as an escape or a distraction or a way to forget about her dad.
She genuinely wants to be with him.
The thought settles in my stomach.
She walks away, leaving Callum standing there with a stupid smile on his face. Then he walks off.
That’s when I push off the wall and move.
I catch up to her on the path between the humanities building and the science quad—a stretch of walkway with trees overhead and enough people around that she can’t avoid me but not so many that she can disappear into a crowd.
She senses me before she sees me. Her pace changes, shoulders tensing, and when she turns her head and meets my eyes, the softness from thirty seconds ago vanishes completely.
“Jax.” She tries to smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Hi.”
I fall into step beside her. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Just heading to class.” Her voice is quiet but steady.
“Everything okay at home?”
“Yeah. Everything’s normal.”
