She glanced at the visitor's face for a reaction. She'd given up on the boy too. Otherwise she wouldn't have mentioned the pencil debacle.
The visitor stepped away from the window. He checked the time on his watch. Twenty-four minutes since he'd entered. He thought of the wings, how the boy had protected them without hesitation. Not the act of a child who believed in rescue.
"He's perfect," the man said. He looked back at the counselor, let the words hang. "I'll take him with me."
The woman's eyes widened, flickered with something close to alarm, but she recovered. "You mean you'd like to foster him?"
"I'd like to adopt him," the man corrected her.
1 kimmy
If the system designed to safeguard you doesn't, there are alternative methods.
The words kept on bouncing around my head as I entered the coffee shop Brynn picked. I got there before her. The place was new—too expensive, too loud, too full of pretty people in thrifted leather jackets. I scanned the interior, half-expecting to be spotted by someone I knew from high school. Because when you have a dreadful secret, you always expect to be seen.
No one looked up.
I picked the booth by the window. There was a wall behind me and a good sightline to the entrance. In case, I needed to leave fast.
I had no obvious reasons.
But still…
I sipped at the latte I didn't want, tracing the painted design on the mug with my finger, watching the street for Brynn's Jeep. The espresso machine behind the counter sounded like an industrial accident.
My fingers drummed the tabletop, then the mug, then the tabletop again. I stopped. Tried to look—or maybe feel—normal. Checked my phone, scrolled through the social media feeds.
Then, a photo of Ronan Wick came into my feed. The same photo that had popped up on my iPad a few days ago during my doom scroll session. It was right before our drunken night out at The Crypt. Actually, the photo was the reason of the said drunken night.
Wick grinned from the screen. My breath stuttered and shook like ithad before. Panic clawed at me, a familiar and feral beast. I mentally wrestled for control.
My finger hovered over the caption below. I hadn't had the courage to read it then. I hesitated now too before pressingRead More. I didn't need to know why he was smiling. I didn't want to know more, to see more.
Still, I looked, steadying myself with one hand against the table's edge, but everything was sliding. My world, so orderly, was unraveling thread by thread.
I tried to follow Dr. Carney's advice.
Breathe.
Count.
Name things.
Five things I could see.
Four things I could touch.
My mind skipped, stalled. The coffee shop was too busy with too many items to pick. Suddenly, everything was Ronan Wick. His face grinning on the screen, the same way it'd grinned at me through the haze of alcohol and drugs three years ago at that penthouse.
My lungs shrank to the size of cherries, squeezing tight. Unwanted memories consumed all space.
I gasped through it, half-gulping. It should have been easier. Three years of therapy and mental battle with myself should have meant something. I should've been stronger, but the panic found me, as brutal and intimate as ever. And in a public place of all places.
The coffee shop's door swung open. A familiar figure entered.
Immediately, my breathing function returned to me.
Brynn's black boots with buckle straps thudded on the tile as she headed straight for the cashier. She wore a tattered hoodie under an even more tattered jacket. Her hair was a new color, deep navy with a bleached shock running through the bangs. I envied how she could look like chaos and not give a single shit about it.
