“I don’t know why you’re being this kind to me,” he said, the words barely above a whisper.
I did. But I wasn’t about to say it. Not yet. Instead, I leaned in, my shoulder pressed fully to his, letting my warmth settle around him.
“Because you deserve it,” I said.
He stared at me as though no one had ever told him that before.
Then Gabbi shifted again, reaching toward me, tiny fingers brushing my arm. I huffed a laugh and eased my free hand up to steady her.
Morgan watched that too—really watched me—and something in his expression changed. More open. Scared, but wanting.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“You don’t have to thank me,” I said. “Just… let us all be here.”
He nodded, small, fragile, but honest.
And then—slowly, cautiously—he leaned his weight on me, trusting me to hold him up.
So, I did.
NINE
Morgan
Six days had passedsince my meltdown in the music room, and I hadn’t gone to counseling or another group session since then. No one forced me to change my mind, even though attendance was one of the rules at Guardian Hall. They let me be on my own, but I hated the thought of disappointing anyone, especially Alex and Marcus. I had silently and stubbornly promised myself that in two hours—exactly a week since I skipped group—I would go back. Alex had already offered to babysit Gabbi since Jazz was at college, saying he’d use the kitten-creche idea, and Gabbi loved that.
The room was too quiet, Gabbi was down for a nap, and intrusive thoughts were creeping in. I tidied to keep my hands busy—folding blankets, stacking toys, straightening things no one but me cared about. The hat Cole had bought her lay half-buried between the folds of her blanket, and I picked it up without meaning to, rubbing the yarn between my fingers.
Cole.
I kept telling myself I was his charity case, his good deed for the week, a messed-up ex-soldier with a baby and no idea of where the future was taking him. But Cole kept turning up—three times this week, I’d walked into the kitchen and found him there. Not hovering. Not fussing. Just… there. He’d crouch beside Gabbi, murmur something to her, and leave before I could figure out what to do with the knot in my chest.
And every damn time he brought her something new. And every time, something inside me twisted—warmth, resentment, confusion, all of it tangled together. I didn’t know why it got to me so much. Maybe because no one had ever shown up like that before—not for me, not for anything that mattered to me. A tiny jacket to match the hat. A ridiculous stuffed sloth she immediately drooled on. A set of bright plastic stacking cups, he claimed, were essential developmental tools, but they clattered across the floor and made her giggle.
None of it was for me. All of it was for her.
And somehow that made it worse.
He wassomethingto me, whether I wanted to admit it or not.
My lawyer had called earlier—voice tight, formal. He’d been proactive, contacting Annie’s parents, who decided they wanted to see Gabbi—odd, given they’d thrown their daughter out and told her never to go home. Apparently, talking to them was entirely up to me. Harold had been honest with me, though—theycouldsue for access, maybe even custody if they proved… whatever it was lawyers proved. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. The thought of strangers deciding anything about my daughter made my skin crawl. He reassured me that this wasn’t going to happen, rambled on about a job, a place to live, an education, and I listened and said what I thought he wanted to hear. I didn’t know what to do first.
I sat on the edge of the bed, still holding the hat, my hands shaking. “I’m not losing you,” I whispered to the empty room. “Not now.”
I leaned back against the wall, the stack of books on my bedside table catching my eye. The complete Willard Priceaction adventure stories, brand new, in a collection box. Untouched. Homework.I had homework.Elena would be disappointed I hadn’t done it, and there had to be a reason she asked me to read them, right?
I cracked open the case and pulled out my favorite book—Amazon Adventure. The cover looked different from the dog-eared copy my dad used to read to me, but the feel of it was the same. I remembered the story in flashes: two brothers thrown into the middle of the Amazon rainforest, all danger and heat and wild animals, everything bigger than life. Shipwrecks. Poachers. A mission gone wrong. Kids surviving things adults would’ve run from.
I used to think I loved it because it was exciting. Now I understood it was something else—those boys weren’t afraid to rely on each other. They weren’t alone.
I had no idea what I was supposed to get out of re-reading it, but maybe that was the point. I cleared my throat and began to read out loud.
Group went well. I’d gone back because I had to—because Gabbi needed me steady, because Alex told me he believed I could handle it, and maybe because part of me wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t a fuck up. The flood of emotion that had knocked me flat last time was still there—waiting, heavy—but it didn’t blindside me. I could see it coming, let it hit, let it move through me without drowning in it.
A couple of the others talked more this time. Jason, a Marine who carried himself as though he was still waiting for orders, spoke in this slow, steady voice about sandstorms that felt like they’d peel your skin off, and the way silence could be louder than gunfire. And then Rivera—Air Force, sharp-tongued, funny as hell—talked about the loneliness of long nights on base, how you could be surrounded by a hundred people and still feel like a ghost drifting through it all.
Listening didn’t hurt the way it had before. It just… settled. Like maybe we were all versions of the same story, told with different scars.
