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Reese swipes a spoonful before I’ve even peeled the plastic back properly. “Okay. So. Talk. Spill. Monologue. Whatever it is you’ve been too busy to say on FaceTime.”

I exhale slowly. The kind of breath that doesn’t really want to leave my lungs. “It’s good,” I start. “The apartment, the work, the bump—Kingston. All of it. But it’s also…”

“Too much,” she finishes softly, like she already knows.

“Some days it feels like I’m killing it,” I admit. “Like I’ve got this whole ‘functioning adult with two humans growing inside her’ thing down. Other days, it feels like the floor drops out the second I stop moving.”

Reese hums in agreement, licking tiramisu off her spoon like it’s gospel. “Welcome to the club. We meet at midnight, wear pajamas, and question every life decision we’ve ever made while pretending we’re totally fine.”

My smile wobbles. “I miss you.”

She nudges my foot with hers. “I’m right here.”

“Not the same.”

“No,” she agrees. “But you needed to go. We both did.”

I nod, throat thick. “I haven’t heard from Fletch.”

There it is—the ache I’ve been ignoring. The one I shoved so far down it only comes up when everything else is still.

Reese doesn’t say anything right away. She just presses the container into my hands and lets me hold it like it might anchor me.

“I think he’s still mad,” I whisper. “And I get it. I left. But part of me hates that he hasn’t even… I don’t know. Checked in? Texted? Asked if I’m okay?”

Reese stretches out beside me, head resting against the headboard. “He’s not mad. He’s… wounded. And scared. He doesn’t know how to reach for you without bleeding all over it.”

I swallow. “I didn’t mean to leave it like that.”

“I know.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “He knows too.”

There’s a beat of silence where I can feel every version of myself spinning out—sister, friend, ghost, survivor. Then Reese says, “But you’re allowed to be okay without him. Even if it hurts.”

I blink back the heat in my eyes and stab my spoon into the tiramisu like it insulted my ancestors.

Reese grins. “Aggressive desserting. I like it.”

“Therapeutic.”

We eat in silence for a minute. The boys’ laughter filters up from downstairs, followed by Fletch yelling, “You absolute menace, Thorin. You camped the red shell?!”

Reese rolls her eyes. “Why are men like this?”

“Genetic chaos and poor impulse control.”

She laughs, loud and unfiltered, and I laugh with her—because if we don’t, the grief might spill out instead.

“You doing okay?” I ask after a beat. “With the launch and the band and the travel and Thorin’s man bun getting tighter every week?”

Reese sighs dramatically. “Honestly? No. But I’m coping. The line’s coming together, Penelope hasn’t threatened to fire me this week, and Thorin remembered to wear deodorant, so I’m calling it a win.”

I grin. “I love you.”

She leans over and bumps her forehead against mine. “Right back at you, Squish.”

The apartment’s still dark when I wake.

Not city-dark—just dim enough to make the edges of everything feel a little softer. The windows are smudged with early light, the sky outside the color of cold lavender. I sit up slowly, blanket half-slipped to the floor, a sticky spoon and an empty tiramisu container still wedged on the bed beside me.