A man could lie to himself only so much before even his reflection started laughing.
Done with limbo.
Done with living my life like a dog outside a window, watching a light I had no right to walk toward. Done riding north and pretending I liked Thai food enough to cross county lines for it. Done collecting pieces of her life through security updates, Regan’s careful little reports, Nate’s big mouth, and Callum’s knowing silences.
I had seen her.
That should have helped.
It didn’t.
It made everything worse.
Destiny on that sidewalk in Santa Monica, wearing a black dress, boots, her mother’s diamonds, her mother’s turquoise ring, and my cuff half-hidden under her sleeve like a secret she still carried.
Destiny staring at me like she had waited a year for answers and hated me for bringing none.
Destiny saying, Don’t call me that if you’re just going to walk away.
And then I had walked away.
Because I was noble.
That was what I told myself.
Noble.
Self-sacrificing.
Letting the bird fly free instead of locking it in a cage built out of my own want.
It sounded good if I didn’t look too close.
If I looked close, it sounded like cowardice wearing a clean shirt.
So I stopped looking close.
I went back to San Diego and put both hands on the life that had been waiting patiently for me to stop haunting myself.
Georgia.
Classes.
The club.
The future I had been building one late-night assignment, one permit code, one miserable math quiz at a time.
Georgia knew I came back different after Santa Monica.
She didn’t ask right away.
That was one of the things that made her dangerous in the quietest way. Georgia didn’t pry. She let silence sit until it got uncomfortable enough to confess on its own.
Three days after Santa Monica, she showed up at my place with takeout, two iced teas, and a stack of index cards for my construction law exam.
“You look like hell,” she said.
“Good to see you too.”
