It feels?—
Right.
CHAPTER 39
TILDA
The room is finally quiet.
Not the kind of quiet that feels empty or hollow, like something’s missing.
The kind that settles in after a storm—when the walls are still standing, the air is still, and you realize, slowly, that you survived.
Jesse is asleep.
That part feels like a miracle.
He’s sprawled across the center of the bed like he owns it, one arm flung over his head, the other still clutching that fossil rock like it’s a sacred artifact. His breathing is soft and steady, each little inhale and exhale smoothing something raw inside my chest that I didn’t even realize was still jagged.
I stand there for a moment longer than necessary, just watching him.
Making sure.
Because some part of me still expects the ground to shake again.
Still expects the world to tilt.
Still expects something to come crashing through the walls and take this fragile, hard-earned calm away.
It doesn’t.
The silence holds.
Behind me, Bron shifts.
“You’re doing the thing again,” he murmurs.
I glance over my shoulder.
“What thing?”
“TheI’m making sure reality hasn’t broken againthing.”
I huff a quiet breath.
“Can you blame me?”
“No,” he says softly. “Not even a little.”
I turn back to Jesse, smoothing a hand gently over his hair.
“He’s okay,” Bron adds.
“I know.”
“You keep checking.”
“I know that too.”
