Chapter 29
Lucia
Normal isthe most convincing lie there is. It looks like Nico on the floor with his dinosaurs spread everywhere, bright plastic against an expensive rug that was never meant for small hands or roaring noises. It looks like sunlight slanting through tall windows, dust motes floating lazily in the air like nothing in this house has ever shattered or bled or screamed. It looks like guards standing exactly where they’re supposed to, faces neutral, bodies still, pretending they aren’t watching us while watching everything.
It looks like safety.
And for once, it doesn’t feel like I’m borrowing it.
I’m sitting on the floor with him, legs folded awkwardly beneath me, back against the couch. I didn’t even think about it before lowering myself down, didn’t calculate how exposed that might make me feel. I just… sat. The rug is soft. Warm from the sun. My shoulders aren’t creeping up toward my ears the way they usually do. My breath isn’t shallow. I notice that only because it surprises me.
Nico pushes a Triceratops into a Tyrannosaurus with dramatic force, making a loud, ridiculous crashing sound that would have had me flinching a week ago.
“He’s the boss,” he announces, satisfied.
“Of course he is,” I tell him. “He looks very authoritative.”
He grins, all teeth and pride, then immediately straightens the line of dinosaurs again, nudging one so it’s perfectly aligned with the edge of the rug. He adjusts another by a fraction of an inch, brow furrowed in concentration like the fate of the world depends on symmetry.
Order where he can find it. Control where it’s allowed.
I see it. I always do. But instead of panic tightening my chest, something gentler settles there. Recognition without fear. Understanding without urgency. I don’t rush to interrupt him. I don’t tell him it doesn’t matter. I let him have it.
“That one’s crooked,” he says seriously, pointing at a stegosaurus.
“You’re right,” I say, leaning forward to help him straighten it. Our heads nearly bump. He smells like soap and crayons and the faint, indefinable warmth of a child who has slept well. I fix it carefully, the way he likes, lining it up just so.
He nods, pleased. “Better.”
Much better.
He starts narrating the battle, voices shifting wildly. Deep and menacing for the Tyrannosaurus, high and indignant for the Triceratops. His hands move fast, confident, sweeping arcs across the rug. He’s not checking my face every few seconds. Not pausing to see if I’m tense, if I’m watching the door, if I’m about to tell him to lower his voice.
He’s just playing. I realize, distantly, that I am, too. Not pretending. Not bracing. Not cataloging exits or calculating how fast I could scoop him up if something went wrong. The house feels… held. Like it’s wrapped around us instead of looming overhead.
I laugh when he makes the Tyrannosaurus dramatically fall over. “Down he goes,” I say.
“He’s not dead,” Nico informs me solemnly. “He’s just… resting.”
“Of course,” I say. “Very important distinction.”
He gives me a look like I’ve passed some invisible test and scoots closer, his knee pressing into my thigh. Casual. Unthinking. The kind of closeness he only does when he feels secure enough not to measure it.
My chest tightens, but not in pain. In relief. For a moment, just a moment, I let myself believe this. Let myself sit in the quiet domestic absurdity of toy dinosaurs and sunlight and guards who don’t scare me. Let myself feel how relaxed my body is, how unfamiliar that sensation has become.
I see too much now. But for once, I don’t let it steal this from me.
Not yet.
My phone buzzes. The sound slices straight through me, sharp and wrong, like glass against bone.
My body reacts before my mind does. Not with a jump, not with a flinch, but with that cold, practiced stillness I learned a long time ago. Muscles locking. Face smoothing. Breath slowing until it barely exists. I don’t reach for the phone right away because I know what panic looks like from the outside, and I refuse to teach my son that expression.
Fear is contagious. Especially to children.
“Wow,” I say lightly, forcing warmth into my voice, forcing my mouth to curve the way it should. I watch Nico knock the dinosaurs over again, dramatic and loud and happy. “That was a big battle.”
He laughs, full and unguarded. The sound hits my chest like something precious and breakable.
