"So," she says, wiping the corners of her eyes. "Lunch?"
"Lunch," I confirm, and the word carries more weight than its single syllable should be able to hold.
"Thank god," Jace adds. "I was about to start gnawing on my own arm."
"Drama queen."
"Takes one to know one, Holloway."
We start walking. Three abreast in the Valenridge corridor, our footsteps falling into an unconscious synchronization that feels less like coincidence and more like the physical memory of a rhythm we established years ago and never fully forgot.
Mae walks between us. Jace on her left, me on her right. The position feels natural. Correct. Like a formation that was always supposed to include her and has been operating with a vacancy for over a decade.
I will tell her the truth.
Over lunch. Over ramen or sandwiches or whatever we find at the campus cafe that accepts the meal plans of two Omegas and an Alpha who refuses to acknowledge his own stomach noises.
I will explain what happened. What my mother did. Why the phone calls stopped and the letters never came, and the girl who held her hand in kindergarten became a ghost who haunted the margins of her memory for thirteen years.
And then I will let her decide whether forgiveness is a bridge she wants to build or a gap she prefers to maintain.
Either way, she will have the truth.
It is eight years overdue. But it is hers.
"See you guys shortly then," Mae says as we reach the corridor junction, and the smile on her face is small and cautious and worth every mile of the distance we still have to cross.
CHAPTER 10
What We Could Have Been
~SAGE~
Ipile my tray like a woman building fortifications against an emotional siege.
Three entrees. A mountain of bread rolls that the serving staff watched me accumulate with the muted horror of people who have witnessed cafeteria gluttony before but never at this specific velocity. A side of roasted vegetables that I selected purely for optical credibility, so that when Mae inevitably glances at my tray and raises an eyebrow, I can gesture toward the broccoli and claim nutritional awareness.
The Valenridge cafeteria is absurd. Vaulted ceilings, exposed brick, Edison bulbs dangling from industrial fixtures with the self-conscious charm of a space designed by people who wanted it to feel "authentic" and spent a quarter million dollars achieving the look. The tables are solid wood. The chairs have cushions. There is a sushi counter, which feels like a personal affront to every community center ice rink where I have eaten a protein bar for dinner standing over a trash can.
I lead us to a table near the windows because the natural light is better and I need to see Mae's face clearly when the conversation turns to the topics that will require me to watch her expressions for the micro-signals that indicate whether she is processing or breaking.
Mae catches me staring at her tray comparison and raises exactly the eyebrow I predicted.
"What?" I tear into a bread roll with the enthusiasm that only comes from two hours of nervous energy burning through my caloric reserves. "I'm a growing girl."
"You're twenty-four."
"Exactly. Still growing. Emotionally, at least." The bread is warm and dense and does nothing to fill the hollow expanding beneath my sternum, but I chew anyway because my mouth needs a task that is not apologizing. "Jace, stop judging me with your eyes."
"I'm not judging." He settles across from us, his tray holding a sensible sandwich and a kale smoothie that looks like it was blended from lawn clippings and self-discipline. "I'm observing. There's a difference."
"You're judging."
"Maybe a little."
"Traitor."
Mae slides into the seat beside me, and her proximity brings her scent into my immediate radius. Warm vanilla sugar and fresh laundry and that clean, bright floral note that I used to inhale during sleepovers when she fell asleep first and I stayed awake memorizing the sound of her breathing because even at ten years old I understood that the people you love most are the ones the world takes from you without warning.
