Because she thought she was watching me break.
But all I felt was the fire sealing the cracks.
CHAPTER 29
AVA - A DISASTER
Remi was already home when I got in.
I had gone for a long drive after leaving the station, trying to clear my head and see a path forward.
I took one look at her and knew this wasn't good.
She wasn't sitting. Or pacing. She was just… standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the fridge like it had offended her, still in her dress clothes from the event. Hair half-up in a clip I didn't even know they sold anymore. Heels kicked off. That wild, unreadable storm brewing just behind her eyes.
She didn’t speak when I closed the door.
I didn’t either.
Not until I dropped my bag, peeled off my jacket, and poured myself a glass of water with a hand that wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Did she call you?” I asked, voice low.
Remi nodded once. “Lia. From the station. They let her use the desk phone. She was crying.”
“I’m sorry I couldn't do more.”
She shook her head, and it wasn’t the kind that meant it’s okay. It was the kind that meant this world will never be okay.
I crossed the room and leaned back against the counter beside her.
“I thought about turning the car around,” she said after a moment. “I was halfway to the venue when I got the call. And all I could think was... not her. Please not her.”
My throat clenched. “I know.”
She looked at me then. “She trusted us.”
“I know.”
Another long silence passed, the kind that settles between peoplewho’ve seen too much, who’ve been asked to bear too much with too little.
The first cool winds of September had slipped in that week. The evenings were darker, sharper, and carrying the kind of chill that warned summer was on its way out. It was the time of year when everything felt fragile, like the edges of the world were fraying just a little. I had caught myself thinking about dates too much lately. How close Remi’s birthday was. How the anniversary after that lurked just beyond it, like an old scar you still flinched to touch. I hadn’t said it out loud, not to her, but the thought clung to me.
"She reminds me so much of Jenny." It came out on a shaky exhale.
Remi sat on the floor without ceremony, pulling her knees to her chest. I slid down next to her, shoulder to shoulder. That familiar feeling of holding each other up without even trying.
“Why do we keep doing this?” she whispered. “Why do we keep pretending we’re not just building sandcastles in a tide pool?”
“Because sometimes the tide doesn’t win,” I said. “Sometimes, we get to hold the line.”
Remi laughed once, brittle. “You sound like Jack.”
That caught me sideways. I waited. And sure enough, the rest came tumbling out.
“I miss him,” she said. “But I can’t, I can’t, be my mother.”
“You’re not... and Remi, he isn't gone yet.”
