“He’s already shifting your focus,” he went on. “You used to stay late to work. Now you’re staying late to wait. That’s not you.”
I opened my mouth to argue—
Then closed it.
Because he wasn’t wrong.
“I’m not telling you what to do,” Cody said, his voice easing just slightly. “You’re grown. You make your own choices.”
He stepped closer then, not in a confrontational way—in a protectiveway.
“But I am telling you to pay attention,” he said. “Because I care about you too much to watch you walk into something I’ve seen go bad more times than I can count.”
That word again.
Care.
Not control.
Not judgment.
Family.
My chest tightened in a different way now.
“I hear you,” I said quietly.
And I did.
I wasn’t brushing him off.
That wasn’t me.
I always listened to Cody.
He was the one who gave me everything I knew.
The one who believed in me when nobody else did.
“I just…” I hesitated, searching for the right words. “I don’t think it’s like that.”
Cody studied me for a long second.
Not angry.
Not disappointed.
Just… knowing.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said.
Silence filled the space again, but this time it didn’t feel like an argument.
It felt like a line.
One I was standing right on the edge of.
“I’ll be careful,” I added, softer now.
