Beckett and Adela, walking across the quad together. Not touching — he's smart enough not to make it that obvious. But close. The kind of proximity that speaks to familiarity.
She's laughing at something he said, her head tilted back, the afternoon sun catching in her dark hair.
I don't feel threatened.
I feel annoyed.
Because that's not the expression I left her with.
The last time I saw her face, she was devastated. Broken. Crying over videos of her boyfriend's betrayals while I watched from the shadows.
And now she's laughing.
Like, I didn’t just crumble her entire world. Like she's not drowning in grief and confusion and the kind of existential crisis that makes people question everything they thought they knew.
I watch them disappear into one of the academic buildings, then pull back into traffic.
This wasn't the plan.
She was supposed to spiral. Become desperate. Cling to anything that offered stability—including the investigation into what happened to Cody, which would eventually lead her exactly where I wanted her to look.
Instead, she's clinging to Beckett.
That's a problem.
Not an insurmountable one. But a problem nonetheless.
I visit my mom on Wednesday afternoon.
She's in her study when I arrive, tablet in her lap, glass of white wine on the side table. She looks up when I walk in and smiles — warm, genuine, the kind she reserves only for me.
"I wasn't expecting you," she says.
"Passing through." I drop onto the leather couch across from her.
She sets the tablet down and studies me the way she always does — quietly, thoroughly, like she's reading something just below the surface of my face. My mother is brilliant in a way that doesn't announce itself. She doesn't practice law like my father. Doesn't hold office or wield power in obvious ways. But she understands people in a way that has always made me careful around her.
“How was the game?”
"We lost to UCLA," I say, before she can ask.
"I saw." A pause. "How's your arm?"
"Fine."
She accepts that with the same expression she uses when she doesn't accept something. She picks up her wine, takes a small sip, and then sets it back down with the deliberate care of someone choosing their next words.
"I want to talk to you about the session you missed."
I keep my face neutral. "I had practice."
"You've missed practice for less." She doesn't say it with accusation. That's what makes her effective — she states things like they're already agreed upon. "Nessa said something during the session. Dr. Hartley flagged it for me afterward."
I wait.
She folds her hands in her lap. "She said she understands why people disappear."
The room is very quiet.
