His mouth twitches. “I didn’t say it’d be painless.”
We sit there for another moment, the café doors opening and closing in my peripheral vision. People coming and going with lattes and pastries and zero awareness that my entire life just tipped onto a different axis.
Eventually, Griff reaches for the door handle.
“Do you want me to come home with you?” he asks.
The wordhomelands strangely in my chest, heavy and undefined. Before I can answer, his phone buzzes. He glances at the screen, jaw tightening just a fraction.
“I’ve gotta take this,” he says quietly.
He steps out of my car and closes the door with care, like he’s trying not to spook me. I watch him move a few steps away, turning his back slightly as he answers, voice low. He doesn’t pace or drift far. He just plants himself there, half-turned toward my car like he’s still keeping watch over me even while he talks.
Of course he is.
I stay in my seat, hands slack now in my lap, staring at the steering wheel like it might tell me how I got here. Like it might explain when silence stopped being self-preservation and started being something uglier.
My phone buzzes a few times. I don’t have to look to know who it is.
Knox.
The weight of his unread message presses against my ribs. I don’t open it. I don’t delete it either. I let it sit there, unresolved, like everything else. Because this is the last moment I get where the truth is still mine alone.
And I hate how much part of me wants to cling to that.
I close my eyes and let the memory of his voice surface. ‘Hey, Star.’
Not accusation. No expectation. Just familiarity.
That’s what finally breaks me.
A tear slips free before I can stop it, tracking hot and fast down my cheek. Then another. I press the heel of my hand into my eye, annoyed at myself for the release, but it doesn’t stop there.
This isn’t grief or panic. It’s the relief of no longer pretending this is survivable. I breathe through it, slow and deliberate, until the pressure eases and my thoughts sharpen instead of scatter.
This is what I know, now that I’m done lying to myself:
I don’t get to protect everyone.
I don’t get to preserve versions of people that only exist because I fed them half-truths.
And I don’t get to decide who forgives me.
But what I do get to do is stop choosing comfort over honesty.
I wipe my face, straighten in the seat, and check my reflection in the rearview mirror. My eyes are red, but clear. My mouth is set in a way that feels unfamiliar.
Resolved.
Griff looks up the second I start my car.
“You good?” he asks, already halfway to his truck.
“No,” I say through the open window. “But I’m ready.”
He studies me for a beat, then nods once. “That’s all I needed to hear.”
I hesitate, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “After this… it’s going to spread.”
