“Do you?”
I thought about my father. The doctors he’d paid off. The papers he’d signed declaring me unstable. The way they’d tried to bury me while I was still breathing.
Yeah… I thought.Because if I was as crazy as they said I was, they wouldn’t have survived me, but I simply said “yes” out loud.
When I walked out of the office, Killian was still standing by the door.
He hadn't moved.
His hands were still in his pockets. His face was still tight.
But when he saw me, something in his shoulders loosened.
"Well?" he asked.
"She said I'm not crazy." I stepped closer—close enough to feel his warmth, close enough to smell his skin. Cedar and coffee and something that was just him.
"She said I'm going to be okay."
He exhaled, like he'd been holding his breath the whole time I was in there.
"Told you," he said.
"You didn't tell me anything."
"I was thinking it."
I laughed. It felt strange. Good.
Elara appeared beside me, linking her arm through mine. "Beignets," she announced. "Now."
Killian's grandfather wheeled himself out of the waiting room, a grin splitting his weathered face.
"I'll take a dozen," he said. "Maybe two."
We walked out together.
Chapter 35: Chloe
The house was quiet in a way that didn’t feel empty. Not like the attic—it felt safe and easily disrupted, like if I yelled, I knew someone would come running. Killian was sleeping, but I couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I’d have a flashback. I didn’t want to go to sleep and wake up screaming and make everybody worry.
I went to the guest room Elara was staying in. She said she stayed up late; it was a little past 10. I knocked.
“Come in,” Elara’s voice called.
I pushed the door open. She was propped up against the headboard, her braids cascading over her shoulders, a book resting forgotten in her lap.
“You okay?” she asked, closing the book and setting it on the nightstand.
I nodded. Then I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I admitted.
She shifted slightly, pulling back the duvet to make space. “Come here.”
I walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Why are you helping me?” The question came out as a whisper. I had coaxed Killian into helping me. Mary did because she felt sorry for me and knew my momma. Grandpa Silas owedmy father a favor. “You're the only one here who's doing this for free,” I added, my voice cracking. “No favors. No history. You don't even know me.”
Elara didn’t answer right away. She studied me, as if she was deciding how much she wanted to say. “Because you’re a woman. Because I see you,” she said.
