The thought repeats in my mind with relentless clarity.
Bron saw Jesse.
Jesse wiggles down from my arms and toddles immediately toward the low table where his toy shuttle lies in several carefully dismantled pieces. He picks up the wing section, turning it slowly in his hands with a frown that suggests the shuttle has personally betrayed him.
“Broken,” he announces.
“Yes,” I reply faintly.
He examines the pieces again before attempting to jam them together with determined enthusiasm. When the parts refuse to reconnect, he sighs heavily, as though engineering has disappointed him on a deeply personal level.
I watch him for a moment before lowering myself onto the edge of the bed and covering my face with both hands.
This was always the nightmare.
Not the competition. Not the risk of injury. Not even the possibility of elimination.
This.
Bron discovering Jesse before I had decided how—or whether—to tell him.
I drag my hands slowly down my face and stare at the far wall.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself. “Think.”
There is still a chance he doesn’t know. He may only suspect something vague. Perhaps he simply noticed Jesse’s scales and assumed nothing more.
Except Bron has never been particularly bad at noticing things that matter to him.
My comm vibrates suddenly against the bedside table.
I flinch before grabbing it.
A notification scrolls across the screen:
Contestant briefing — Rally Event begins in 40 minutes.
Right.
The competition does not pause for personal crises.
“Mama,” Jesse says.
I look up.
He is holding two pieces of the shuttle again, studying them with intense concentration.
“Broken.”
“Yes,” I repeat, a little more gently this time.
He nods thoughtfully, then slams the pieces together with renewed determination.
They still do not connect.
“Hmm,” he says.
I push myself to my feet.
