She snorts.
“I can show him those parts of me, and he won’tuse it against me.”
That’s the thing I don’t say out loud most days. In my job, softness gets eaten alive. You show a crack, and someone pushes.
I’ve built a life on being sharp.
Soft isn’t a survival skill.
“And I can be the strong version of me too,” I add, because I need that on record. “He doesn’t make me smaller.” I rub my lips together, searching for the right word. “He makes me feel like… like…”
“An equal?” she supplies gently.
My chest tightens.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “Yeah.”
He feels steady.
He feels safe.
He feels like someone standing beside me instead of across from me.
And he scares me so much.
“Feels amazing, doesn’t it?” Celeste says.
I don’t trust myself to speak, so I nod.
She steps forward and wraps her arms around me. I let her, which is how I know I’m really unwell.
“You are not selfish for choosing yourself,” she murmurs into my hair. “You’re allowed to have something that’s just yours. You’re allowed to be happy.”
I close my eyes.
Soft.
Christ.
What am I supposed to do with that?
Fifty-Six
Beckett
I’ve spent the last week staring at my phone, waiting for a version of Madison that isn’t a one-word text or a polite brush-off.
Ever since I called Hudson and helped stabilize Donna, Madison has gone into ghost mode. She’s been living at her parents’ house, playing the role of the perfect, unflappable daughter as her mother slowly finds her footing again. I know that role. I know the cost of it. It’s the kind of performance that hollows you out until there’s nothing left but a shell.
I’m sitting in my living room, the TV on mute, when I hear the uneven tread of her footsteps.
I gave her space when she first came home. Then work called me away for days.
She’s had time.
I’ll be damned if she keeps avoiding me.
I’m at my door and down the half-flight of stairs before she can even get her key in the lock.
