Heavy.
Grounding.
For three years, I've survived alone. Fought alone. Bled alone. Built walls around myself so high that no one could reach me, because reaching meant vulnerability and vulnerability meant death.
But these men just reached through anyway.
Just reached out and caught a volleyball and drew blood and made a statement to everyone watching:
She's one of us now.
And we take care of our own.
I don't know what to do with that.
Don't know how to process the emotions churning in my chest—gratitude and fear and hope and the desperate, aching need to believe that this is real.
It's temporary, I remind myself.
The alliance ends when Kai's father is dealt with.
Then we're enemies again.
But even as I think it, the words feel less certain than they did before.
Less final.
Because enemies don't protect each other.
Enemies don't catch volleyballs and draw blood and touch your cheek like you're something precious.
Enemies don't make your heart race with a single look across a crowded gymnasium.
Maybe, I think, watching them.
Maybe this isn't what I thought it was.
Maybe this is something else.
Something more.
The thought is terrifying.
Wonderful.
And as the PA instructor finally arrives to start the class, forcing everyone back into their assigned positions, I find myself smiling.
Not the manic grin I use as armor.
Not the sharp expression I deploy when I want people to back off.
Just... a smile.
Small.
Private.
The expression of someone who's starting to realize that maybe—just maybe—she's stumbled into something worth keeping.
