Page 29

Damn, do I know the facts.

I know the world split wrong.

I know she screamed until her voice broke.

I know she tried to stop the bleeding with hands that were never going to be enough.

None of that matters. Grief isn’t interested in accuracy. It just wants somewhere to live. So it lives in her.

I let myself imagine it sometimes—her in that doorway instead of him. Her blood in the grain of the porch boards. Her pulse slipping under my fingers. Because imagining it keeps my lungs working. Because it turns the noise down enough to sleep.

“Take care of her.”

Not a request. A verdict. A weight hung around my neck and tightened every time I breathe.

She’s what’s left, and that makes her dangerous.

Today, I didn’t touch her.

She was at the sink, sleeves rolled, staring out the window like she’d forgotten the world has teeth. Something outside shifted—not movement, not a threat. Just wrongness. The kind that crawls under the skin and waits.

I moved before I thought.

Quiet. Controlled. I crossed the room and stopped just close enough to block her reflection in the glass. Not touching. Not crowding. Just there—my body breaking the line between her and whatever was looking back.

She felt it anyway. She always does.

I didn’t raise my voice. Didn’t grab her. Didn’t give her anything she could call fear.

“Step away from the window,” I said.

Not sharp. Not loud. Certain.

She froze. Just a fraction—shoulders tightening, breath catching before she smoothed it out.

I shifted again, angling my weight without thinking. Closer to the door. Back to the room. Line of sight on the yard, the fence, the blind spots I already mapped this morning.

“Don’t be stupid,” I added, calm as stone. “You don’t last long if you’re visible.”

She turned then. Confusion flashed across her face. Hurt followed close behind it.

I didn’t soften.

“If something out there wants you,” I said, “it won’t announce itself.” My eyes stayed on the window. On the yard. On the place the air felt wrong. “And I won’t always be standing between you and the glass.”

It wasn’t reassurance.

It was instruction.

I let her see where I stood. Let her clock the exits I had already closed with my body.

Then I finished it—quiet, surgical.

“Don’t confuse this for concern. I’m not protecting you. I’m protecting the last thing my brother left breathing.”

She flinched. So did I. I just didn’t let it show.

Not because I moved—but because I didn’t.