One wants distance. Walk away. Leave the kitchen. Give him the room. Refuse the whole setup.
Another wants to stay exactly where I am and make him feel my presence in every inch of this house until he understands that showing up here was a mistake.
The third, the worst one, wants violence. Immediate, clarifying, useless violence. Not because it would solve anything. Because his face in this doorway with that calm concern in his mouth makes the bathroom come back too vividly. The look on him when he said she would hate me if I touched him. The way he used her as the leash he knew would hold.
Standing here now, I know he was right then for the same reason I know I can’t give him what he wants now.
Because if I react, if I step wrong, if I let even a fraction of what I’m feeling show too clearly in front of Jacob, Steph and Octavia, the whole thing changes shape. It stops being tension and starts being evidence.
So I do the hardest thing available to me.
I stay still.
But stillness is not peace. Stillness is what a predator wears when it understands movement would be too compromising. I can feel it in my own body, that awful suspended pressure, the rage banked low enough to pass for composure only because I am forcing it there.
Kadin is inside the house now. Octavia’s friends are filling the foyer with harmless chatter. Steph is asking if anyone wants coffee. Jacob is still watching, less welcoming than before, his instincts finally waking up to the fact that there’s a boy in his doorway for reasons no one has explained cleanly.
All I can think, with a kind of cold certainty that settles in my chest like metal, is that Kadin did not come here just to check on her.
He came here to stand in my sightline and make me live through it.
Kadin handles Jacob exactly the way a boy like him would.
The second Steph ushers them farther into the kitchen, he steps forward with that easy, polished confidence that comes from being raised to believe adults will like you if you look them in the eye and use the right tone. He offers Jacob a small, respectful smile and says, “Sir,” before extending his hand.
Sir.
The word alone is enough to make something in me twitch violently.
Jacob takes it, because of course he does. He’s not rude, and Kadin is doing everything right on paper. Firm handshake. Straight posture. Just enough humility in the face to makehimself seem harmless. Watching it happen turns my stomach in a way I don’t have language for. I have to look away before the expression on my face says too much.
Because if I keep looking, all I will see is Kadin standing in this house pretending he belongs in it, and Jacob shaking his hand like he’s a possibility instead of a threat.
Then Kadin turns to Octavia.
He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t ask. He just steps into her space and folds her into a hug like he’s entitled to offer comfort publicly now, like that’s his place. Octavia goes stiff for a second, visibly unsure what to do with her arms, what to do with him, what to do with the fact that this is happening in front of everyone and, more importantly, in front of me.
“You doing okay?” he asks her quietly.
She nods too fast. Not because she’s okay. Because she doesn’t know what else to do.
Then she ducks away from him almost immediately, retreating toward Maria and Cheyenne with the kind of half-laughing energy girls use when they’re trying to smooth over awkwardness before adults notice it. She catches Kadin’s sleeve as she goes, dragging him along with her. I know before I look up why she’s moving so quickly.
She saw me watching.
“Sir,” I mutter under my breath once they’ve shifted away. “Fucking sir.”
The words barely make it past my teeth.
Jacob, who has drifted a little closer without making it obvious, hears me anyway. He doesn’t react right away. He lets another beat of conversation pass, then leans just far enough toward me that no one else can catch it.
“If that boy thinks me shaking his hand was approval,” he says quietly, “he is dead wrong.”
That gets me.
Not enough for a laugh, but enough for the corner of my mouth to pull upward despite myself. It’s involuntary and gone almost as quickly as it appears, but Jacob sees it. That was probably the point.
Across the room, Cheyenne catches the shift.
