Shit.
Has she been there since Skye opened the door? Did she see…
And just like that, everything I’ve been holding—grief, guilt, temptation—presses down harder than ever, threatening to crack me wide open in the middle of this goddamn funeral home.
TWENTY-SIX
LEO
By the timeI leave the funeral home, the sky’s already dark. It’s only a little after seven, but the parking lot lamps glow against patches of ice and the cold sinks straight into my bones. The whole day feels heavy and endless, but the thought of going home makes my stomach twist. If I walk through my front door, I’ll drink myself stupid. I know it. I’ll crack open a bottle, call it “just one,” and by midnight I’ll be staring at an empty glass like it owes me answers.
I can’t do that tonight.
But I also can’t stomach being around anyone else. I’ve been surrounded by people since morning—hands grabbing mine, voices whispering condolences like they mean anything, eyes watching me to see if I’ll break. I’ve done enough breaking for one day.
So instead of heading toward my house, I find myself pulling into the Middle Peak lot. Three days before Christmas, the campus is dead quiet. Most students cleared out last week, professors scattered soon after. It’s eerie, all those dark windows and empty sidewalks, like the place has gone hollow.
My spot is open, like it’s been waiting for me.
Of course it’s open, you dumb fuck. Nobody else is even here right now.
I cut the engine and sit for a second, listening to it tick in the cold. My hands don’t move from the wheel. The truth is, I don’t even know why I came here. But maybe I do.
My office is the only place I can think of where I’ll be left alone. No bottle waiting, no well-meaning neighbor showing up with a casserole, no memories pressed into every corner of the house. Just a desk, four walls, and silence.
I take my keys, shove them deep in my coat pocket, and head inside. The halls are dim, the kind of half-light you get when maintenance sets the timers wrong, buzzing fluorescents overhead. My footsteps echo too loud, like I don’t belong here. But the quiet—the quiet is what I need.
When I unlock the pod and step in, everything is in its place. Familiar. Safe. Neutral. I don’t even bother with the lights, there’s no point, and lean back against the door until my knees remember how to hold me up.
It’s pathetic, probably, retreating here of all places. But tonight, it feels like the only option that won’t destroy me.
Because George is gone. Skye’s furious. Stephanie nearly kissed me. And Tori?—
Christ, Tori.
I have no idea what is running through her mind right now. What she saw in that room. Assumptions she made. She should be furious—hell, Skye is livid. But when she said goodbye tonight, she didn’t seem angry at all. It didn’t make sense. She adjusted my tie. Like it mattered. LikeImattered. And then she pulled me down just enough to brush her lips against the corner of my mouth.
“I’ll see you later.”
That’s all she said before walking out.
My legs are stable enough to support me now… I think… so I push off the pod door and head toward my office. Only, when I step inside and look around, it isn’t enough.
Isn’t safe enough. Warm enough. Secure enough to hold me together when all I feel like doing is falling apart.
And suddenly, I completely understand why Tori curled herself into a ball in the back corner of our copy room, even when she was the only person here.
Because the copy room—it is safe, and warm, and small enough to help someone feel secure when everything else is chaos. When everything else hurts. When everything else is broken beyond repair.
When I step into the small copy room, the contrast to my office is immediate. I breathe in paper and toner, listen to the faint hum of the machine. It’s white noise—not loud enough to jar, but steady enough to ease the weight of unbearable silence.
I’m not even halfway across the tiny room when someone else enters behind me, shutting the door and locking it.
“What the—” I turn around and see… “Tori?”
Calm. Steady. Eyes like flint. She walks toward me with slow, deliberate steps, like she’s hunting something she’s already wounded.
“Tor—”
