I yank the helmet off before the turbines have even finished spinning.
She’s already there.
Waiting at the edge of the tarmac like a storm wrapped in silence.
She doesn’t yell.
Doesn’t march.
Doesn’t call for security.
She just says—quiet, tight, deadly—“You’re better than this.”
And somehow that hurts more than if she’d screamed.
I hop down from the cockpit. The moment my boots hit the ground, it feels like I’ve stepped into gravity twice as thick.
“I had to see you.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No,” I say, stepping closer. “It’s not.”
She shakes her head, eyes shining in a way that has nothing to do with tears and everything to do with fury.
“You could’ve been grounded.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“You could’ve been killed, Kaz!”
“Then maybe I’d finally stop feeling like this.”
She blinks.
Like I slapped her.
Like she wasn’t expecting honesty to cut sharper than sarcasm.
I press on, voice rough. “I can’t go back to being just another name on your list. Another cadet you nod at in drills and forget by lunch.”
Her arms cross tighter over her chest. “That’s not what this is.”
“No?” I ask, stepping even closer. “Because it feels like you walked away the second things got real.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is for me,” I say. “I didn’t just sleep with you, Nova. I gave you everything. All of it. You said nothing. Then you left me to guess.”
Her eyes narrow. “You think I don’t feel this too?”
“You’ve got a hell of a way of showing it.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“From what? Me? Or yourself?”
She flinches.
