As if he knows — and he probably does, he’s always known —
Cassian’s hand finds mine under the table.
I look at my dad.
He looks back at me.
Something passes between us that doesn’t need words.
He nods.
Small. Certain.
Go, it says.
I’ve got this part.
Go.
I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make that up to him.
For leaving him alone with all of it.
I hope he forgives me one day.
But he waved us off in that way he has — big and certain and with a bad joke I don’t even remember — and so I go.
• • •
Back to my room.
Cassian behind me.
I head straight for my desk.
The pill bottle.
The familiar weight of it in my hand.
I’m about to dry swallow — a habit from the months when getting up to get water felt like too many steps — when Cassian grabs my wrist.
“The fuck is that.”
“Anxiety medication.” I give him a look. “You’ve apparently lost the ability to read in the last two years.”
“Fucking asshole.” He’s not smiling. “How long. And why do you have that much.”
• • •
He takes the bottle.
Turns it over.
Looks at me the way you look at someone when you’re trying to measure damage.
I let him look.
I’m too tired to pretend.
