The silence that followed wasn’t hostile. Just stiff. Like trying to sit still in a new pair of boots.
I eased the van onto the snow-covered street, tires crunching over the ice like broken glass underfoot. The heater wheezed to life, barely cutting the chill. Beside me, Callie sat bundled up, fingers fidgeting with her gloves like she couldn’t sit still if she tried.
“The bakery on Main used to hand out free donuts on Fridays,” she said suddenly, voice light. “Mr. Kemp would show up at dawn and take five. I think that’s why they stopped.”
I didn’t answer. Just kept my eyes on the road, one hand steady on the wheel, the other tightening in my lap.
Undeterred, she kept going. “Mrs. Dalrymple—our next stop—still puts out milk for the feral cats. They never come, but she keeps doing it, anyway. Habit, I guess.”
A breath escaped me—half sigh, half something else. “You always do this?”
She blinked. “Do what?”
“Fill silence with facts.”
“I talk when I’m nervous,” she admitted, glancing out the window like she regretted saying anything at all.
I didn’t respond right away. Just watched the frost gather in the corners of the windshield.
“Clearly,” I muttered, but the corner of my mouth twitched before I could stop it.
She didn’t see it. Probably for the best.
I didn’t say much. I didn’t really know what to say. She was clearly trying, and I was… not good at this kind of thing.
“You nervous?”
She hesitated, then nodded once. “Yeah. You?”
I didn’t answer. Just gripped the wheel tighter and focused on the road ahead.
The route was rough—slick turns, poor visibility, a wrong turn that cost us fifteen minutes. She pointed left when I went right. We snapped at each other, quick and sharp, and then fell back into silence that wasn’t quite comfortable but wasn’t entirely cold, either.
The road ahead glistened with packed snow and black ice, a stretch of silence broken only by the growl of the engine and the occasional thump of slush against the undercarriage. I gripped the wheel tighter, jaw clenched, the cabin too warm for how cold I felt inside.
“Should’ve taken that last right,” Callie said, not looking at me—just frowning at her phone like it had betrayed her.
“I’m following the GPS,” I muttered, sharper than I meant to be.
She gave a noncommittal shrug. “Right, well, it doesn’t always know better.”
“Neither do you.”
She let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh in another life. “Funny.”
But it wasn’t. Not really. Just another reminder of how we used to talk without biting and now couldn’t stop drawing blood.
After a few more tense turns and a brief slip that had my stomach lurching, we finally pulled up in front of a squat little duplex tucked between frostbitten trees. The driveway had been barely cleared, just enough for us to park without getting stuck.
“This is it,” Callie said brightly, unbuckling before I even shifted into park.
She was already halfway to the porch by the time I climbed out. I kept my hands buried in my coat pockets, letting the cold bite at my skin—it felt easier to focus on that than whatever was stirring under my ribs.
Two people stood waiting: a small girl practically vibrating with excitement and an older woman who offered a patient, knowing smile.
“Books!” the girl squealed as Callie approached, her face lit up like Christmas morning.
Callie dropped into a crouch, the box of books balanced easily in her hands. “We brought you some new stories,” she said, her voice soft in a way I hadn’t heard in years.
