The way it was.
I think about the videos. About the ceramic ballerina on my bathroom shelf. About the file Gary opened in that dim room while Julian stood beside me, and the world I thought I lived in collapsed into something I didn't recognize.
The way it was.
"Of course," I say.
He looks at me for a moment longer than feels comfortable, like he's reading something in my face and deciding whether he believes what he finds there.
Then he opens the door.
Cody looks smaller than I remember.
That's the first thing. He's propped up against the pillows, an IV in his arm, a bandage at his temple, and he looks like someone turned the volume down on him. Pale. Thin. The particular fragility of a body that has been through something it didn't choose.
Then he sees me.
And his face does something that I was not prepared for.
Pure relief. Uncomplicated and immediate, like a breath he's been holding for weeks, finally released.
"Adela."
My chest does something complicated and painful that I don't have a name for.
He reaches for my hand, and I cross the room and take it because his father is in the doorway and Maeve is behind me, and there is no version of this moment where I don't.
His fingers are warm. His grip is weak.
"Cody," I mutter, feeling the tears prick my eyes. It waters my entire vision.
"Hi." He smiles. Tired and genuine. "You're here."
"I'm here."
He looks at me the way he always used to, like I'm something he's relieved to have. And I stand there holding his hand and look at his face and feel the cruelty of knowing what I know while he looks at me like that.
"You look different," he says.
"I do?"
"I don't know." He searches my face. "Something's different."
I squeeze his hand gently. "You've been asleep for a while. Everyone probably looks different."
He laughs weakly. "Fair."
His thumb traces small circles on the back of my hand.
"We're okay, right?" he asks quietly.
The room holds completely still.
His eyes are on mine — open, uncertain, needing something — and his father is in the doorway. Maeve is somewhere behindme, and the machines are beeping their steady, indifferent rhythm, and I am standing here holding the hand of a man who filmed me without my knowledge and kept it, and I have to say something.
He’s asking that because he knows. He knows we wouldn’t be okay if I knew. I swallow down my pride. I don’t want to be a suspect, especially now that he’s awake. Maeve is my alibi, but it doesn’t mean anything if his father’s a judge.
"Of course," I say.
