I’m the one who shows up with solutions and spreadsheets and emergency chocolate. I’m the calm voice in a crisis. The sister who handles it. The daughter who absorbs it. The woman who laughs too loudly and pretends she’s in control of every variable in the room.
But Beckett doesn’t just look at me.
Those brown eyes don’t skim the surface and move on.
They linger.
They see me.
And that is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced.
What if he looks too closely? What if he searches past the sarcasm and the competence and the perfectly timed jokes and finds the mess underneath? The girl who’s been bracing for impact her whole life. The one who only feels useful when she’s needed. The one who doesn’t actually know who she is when there’s nothingto fix.
So much for confident Madison.
Confident Madison doesn’t lie awake in the middle of the night wondering whether the man upstairs will realize she’s more fragile than she pretends to be.
Confident Madison doesn’t panic at the thought of someone caring for her without conditions.
But I’m not her. Not really.
I’m just very good at playing her.
Three hesitant taps on the door pull me from the spiral.
For one reckless second, I think it’s Beckett, coming back because we can’t do anything in moderation.
I check the peephole.
It’s Piper.
I open the door, and my little sister looks terrified. Her face is blotchy and swollen, her eyes rimmed in violent red. Her hands are shaking so badly she looks like she’s vibrating out of her skin.
“Madi?” Her voice fractures on my name.
Everything in me snaps into place.
I pull her inside before my hands settle on her shoulders, scanning her as if I’m triaging a patient. “Piper, what happened? Are you hurt?”
She’s clutching a small overnight bag.
“Can I stay?” she whispers. “Just for tonight?”
“Of course you can. God, Piper, you’re shaking.”
I guide her toward the sofa, but she won’t sit. She just stands in the middle of my living room, looking smaller than I’ve seen her since Mom threw a glass across the kitchen when she was twelve.
“Talk to me,” I say. “What’s going on?”
She wipes her face with the back of her hand, making a broken, wet sound that splits straight throughmy ribcage.
“It was just an argument with Ezra,” she says too quickly. “It was silly.”
I look at the bag.
“It can’t be that silly if you’re here at two in the morning with your luggage.”
Her spine stiffens. I can practically see her building her defenses. I’ve never been Ezra’s biggest fan. There’s just something I can’t put my finger on about him, and Piper knows it.
