Page 76 of What We Don't Say: Part Two

The thought of Theo, curled up in my borrowed bed with my scent around him, brings a fresh wave of heat to my chest. He's the most visible casualty of Garrett’s engineering, the one who was told his need made him dangerous, that wanting me made everything worse. But when I picture him in my room, I don't only see panic. I know panic. This is need, yes, but it is also preference. He curls into me because he wants me there when the world is quiet too.

“We should go back to him,” I say, though my body is reluctant to leave the circle Sloane and Idris have made around me.

“We will,” Idris says, opening the passenger door of the truck. “You can sit in the middle if that feels better, or by the door if you need the space.”

The choice is small enough that I can hold it. I look at the truck cab, at the space between them, at the open door and the lot behind us. “The middle,” I say. “But don't close the door until I tell you.”

Idris nods. “I will wait.”

I climb into the middle seat, my shoulders brushing Sloane’s and my thigh pressed lightly against Idris' when he gets in after me. It is tight. It should be too much. Instead, the closeness feels like a perimeter I have chosen. Sloane keeps one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting on the seat between us until I turn my palm over. Only then does he lace his fingers through mine.

The drive back takes the long way because Idris suggests trees, and Sloane listens. Outside the windshield, Halston falls away into damp roads, wet branches, and the pale green shimmer of leaves after rain. I drink the coffee Sloane brought me in slow sips, and neither of them asks me to talk. The silence in the cab holds differently than the silences Garrett built. This one has Sloane’s hand around mine, Idris' quiet heat at my side, Theowaiting for me in the room that still smells like my sleep, and Dash keeping the house steady enough for all of us to breathe.

None of it is fixed. Garrett Crane is still out there, and the legal battle waits like weather on the horizon. But when the truck turns back toward Dash’s house, I don't ask them to let go.

Calliope

By Friday, I’ve made it through three days back on campus. The department meeting runs late because everyone suddenly has strong feelings about assessment language, and I stay through the final argument instead of using exhaustion as an excuse to leave. By the time Dash pulls into the driveway, the house is dark except for the lamp in the living room and the low glow spilling from the kitchen.

Sloane and Idris had offered to wait in the lot again, but I asked Dash to drive me alone today because I wanted oneordinary commute without anyone turning the campus into a perimeter.

My whole body feels wrung out from holding itself upright for too many hours. I’ve smiled, nodded, argued professionally about curriculum sequencing, eaten half a dry sandwich over a stack of papers, and pretended my hands didn’t shake every time my phone lit up on the conference table. Now the silence inside the car feels too large, and the sight of the house makes my chest hurt in too many directions to name.

My phone buzzes while Dash pulls into the driveway.

Mara: Did the meeting survive you?

Mara: Did you survive the meeting?

Mara: Important distinction.

The last message is a picture of the chipped blue mug sitting on her desk, angled like she staged it for evidence.

Mara: Joint custody continues.

I stare at the picture until the tightness in my chest eases by a fraction, then lift my travel mug and take a photo before Dash finishes parking.

Me: Home. Meeting survived. I’m less sure about me.

Her heart reaction appears almost immediately.

Mara: Good enough. Text me later if you can.

Dash turns off the engine but doesn’t get out right away. He keeps one hand on the steering wheel, his profile soft in the dark, and gives me the quiet without making it feel empty. “You made it through the whole day,” he says, voice low enough that it doesn’t bruise the night. “That doesn’t mean you owe anyone a stronger version of yourself when you walk inside.”

I nod because answering would take more energy than I have. My satchel sits heavy against my hip when I climb out, the strap cutting into the same shoulder where Sloane’s old bite has been aching since sunset. Dash takes the bag only after I hand it to him, and the smallness of the courtesy nearly undoes me.There are so many ways to be loved. There are so many ways to be trapped. I’m still learning the difference by the shape of someone’s hands.

Inside, I shed my shoes by the door and stand there in my stockings, staring at them like they might tell me what kind of woman I’m supposed to be next. Professor Monroe is somewhere in the bottom of my bag, folded between meeting notes and a half-marked essay. Callie is in the hall with her feet cold and her body humming from a day of restraint. The air smells like coffee gone lukewarm, Dash’s cedar shelves, and the faint lingering warmth of the people sleeping deeper in the house.

Sloane is awake in the living room, sitting on the floor near the coffee table with a blanket folded across his lap and a notebook open beside him. At first, I think he’s reading legal notes, and my whole body starts to brace before my eyes catch the shape of what he’s written. Coffee. Water. Granola bars in the left cabinet. Theo takes hot water before breakfast. Callie freezes if people stand in doorways. Ask before dimming lights. Set things down within reach.

Something soft and terrible opens under my ribs.

He looks up when he feels me there, and for one suspended second, neither of us moves. His hair is a mess, one side crushed from where he must have tried to rest on the couch and failed. His eyes are red with exhaustion, but they find me with such immediate, helpless relief that I have to put one hand on the wall. He closes the notebook slowly, palms visible, as if even paper could become pressure in the wrong hands.

“Hi, baby,” he says, voice rough from waiting up. “You’re home.”

The words are too simple. They hit too deep. I cross the room before I can talk myself into being careful, before I can measure what wanting him means, before I can remember all the reasonsmy body is supposed to be afraid of reaching first. Sloane rises only when I’m already there, and then my hands are in his shirt and my mouth is on his.