She looked at Rook. “And Rowan, if you notice any of the warning signs we discussed you call me immediately. Day or night.”
“I will,” Rook said, and his voice was steady in a way that made me believe him.
“Good. Soren, you're going to have hard days. That's inevitable. But hard days don't have to become crisis days if you have the right support in place. Do you understand?”
“Yeah.”
Rookand I walked out into the late afternoon light, and I felt like I'd been scraped raw and left out to dry. Everything hurt in a soft, exposed way, and I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry or sleep for three days straight.
We got to the car, and I expected him to start driving back to his place. Instead, he pulled out onto the street and headed in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere that involves sugar and not thinking about hospitals for a while.”
“Rook—”
“Just trust me, okay?”
I did trust him, which was terrifying in its own right. But I also didn't have the energy to argue, so I settled back in my seat and watched the city roll past outside the window.
He took me to a small ice cream place near the waterfront, the kind of spot that probably charged too much for artisan flavors and had lines out the door in the summer. It was quiet today, though, just a few people scattered around the outdoor tables despite the cool air.
“Ice cream,” I said. “You're taking me for ice cream.”
“You got a problem with that?”
“It's March. It's like ten degrees out.”
“Ice cream doesn't have a season.”
“That's the dumbest thing you've ever said, and you once tried to convince me that cereal was a valid dinner.”
“Cereal is a valid dinner.”
“You're a professional athlete. You can't survive on Lucky Charms.”
“Watch me.”
We went inside, and I stared at the flavor list like it was written in a language I didn't speak. Everything sounded too sweet, too bright, too much for a day that had already wrung me out. Rook ordered vanilla—because of course he did, the man had the adventurous spirit of a tax return—and then looked at me expectantly.
“I don't know what I want,” I admitted.
“Pick the weirdest one.”
“Why?”
“Because you always pick the weird stuff, and I always judge you for it, and it's funny.”
“You think my ice cream choices are funny?”
“I think everything about you is funny. In a good way.”
I scanned the list again and landed on lavender honey, mostly because it sounded like the kind of thing Rook would hate. “That one.”
The girl behind the counter scooped it into a cone and handed it over, and Rook looked at it like I'd just ordered a bowl of potpourri.
“That's purple.”
