Silence stretches.
Then, quieter, Kai says, “I almost lost you.”
My chest tightens. “I know,” I whisper.
His eyes go glassy. He blinks hard like he refuses to cry. “So I don’t know how to do this without watching.”
It’s honest.
It’s human.
And it makes my throat tighten because it means he’s trapped too.
I look down at my plate and force myself to take a bite of egg. It tastes like nothing. Still, I chew. Kai watches, something easing in his face as I swallow.
His jaw ticks. “I don’t trust the world. I don’t trust Tyler. I don’t trust anyone who thinks your body is something they get to manage.”
The name doesn’t hit like a jump scare as it did in the bookstore. It hits like a bruise you forgot you had until someone presses it.
My fingers tighten around my fork. The metal bites my skin.
Kai watches the movement. He always does.
“I’m not saying this to make you—” He stops and rubs a hand over the back of his neck like the words get stuck there. “I’m saying it because sometimes I need you to understand why my brain is a little fucked up.”
We sit in silence for a while, and Kai is the first to break the silence.
“I remember,” he says, and now his voice is the one shaking. “I remember Mom calling me. I remember thinking—” He stops, swallows hard. “I remember thinking I was going to get home and you wouldn’t be there.”
The kitchen suddenly feels far too small for the two of us.
“I tore him apart.”
A flash—Kai in our hallway that night, shoulders tight, eyes furious, not even asking permission before he left the house. My mom trying to stop him, but not getting through to him in his rage.
I nod, throat tight.
“I know,” I add quietly. “And I know you did it because you love me.”
Kai’s eyes soften by a fraction. “I would do it again.”
“I know that too,” I whisper. Then, because it’s the part I never say, “But experiencing that also taught you that loving me means watching me.”
Kai’s throat bobs, and he stares at the floor like it might give him a different answer.
Finally, he says, quietly, “It taught me that if I blink, I miss them. I miss the signs that you need me.”
My chest aches.
“Kai,” I say, and my voice comes out softer than I planned, “I’m not asking you to not care.”
He looks up.
“I’m asking you to learn how to care without putting your hands around my throat.” I swallow. “Not literally. Just…sometimes it feels like that.”
Kai’s face twists.
“I don’t know how,” he admits, and it sounds like it costs him something to say it. “Because following your lead last time meant I got paged at school, and the principal told me you hit the floor, and they had called an ambulance.”
