He didn’t look back when he left.
Which somehow makes it worse.
I sit on the floor, my back against the cool metal wall, my knees pulled loosely to my chest. My hands are clean now, Zane made sure of that, but I can still feel it.
The ghost of it.
“Well,” Finn says, exhaling slowly. “That escalated.”
Zane doesn’t look up. “You got stabbed.”
“Okay, but like… lightly.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“I feel like you’re being very negative about my recovery process.”
I let out a small breath that almost resembles a laugh, and Finn’s gaze flicks to me immediately, catching it like it matters.
“You good?” he asks quietly.
I nod, then shake my head, then settle somewhere in between. “I don’t know.”
“Fair,” he says.
Zane finally leans back, satisfied enough with the bandage to stop adjusting it. His eyes move to me, soft but searching. “You held it together.”
“I cried,” I point out.
“You still held it together.”
“I’ve never…” I start, then stop.
Never what?
Seen someone bleed for me?
Been part of something like this?
Felt this tangled up in people I barely knew a few weeks ago?
I exhale slowly. “This isn’t what I planned.”
Finn huffs lightly. “Yeah, we’re really ruining your itinerary.”
I glance at him. “You absolutely are.”
“Tragic,” he says. “We had such a nice, normal thing going. You, me, a casual night at a bar, zero life-altering decisions?—”
Zane cuts in, quiet but firm. “Finn.”
“I didn’t think you’d stay,” Finn says after a beat. “Not like this.”
“I didn’t either,” I admit.
Zane watches me carefully. “Then why are you still here?”
I realize, sitting there on the floor of a storage unit, that I don’t have a simple answer.
