Zach.
Playing. Living. And I’m here.
Paused. Suspended somewhere between what happened and whatever comes next. My eyes drift away from the screen, pulled instead toward the movement behind me.
Elijah hasn’t stopped pacing since the game started.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
His footsteps are controlled, measured, quiet enough that they shouldn’t be distracting, but they are, because there’s something underneath them that doesn’t settle, something tight and coiled that keeps him moving like if he stops for too long, everything he’s holding in place will start to unravel.
His phone is in his hand, his attention split between whatever is happening on the screen and everything else that exists outside these walls, outside this apartment, outside this moment.
Security.
Threats.
His family.
The things he doesn’t say out loud.
“Elijah.”
My voice is softer than I intend, but it cuts through the space anyway.
He stops.
Not gradually.
Not like he was already slowing down.
He just… stops.
His head turns slightly, his gaze finding mine, and for a second, I can see the shift in him, the way he pulls himself back into the room, back into me, back into here.
“Please sit with me.”
There’s a pause.
A small one.
But it’s there.
His fingers tighten slightly around his phone, like it takes effort not to look back down at it, not to keep moving, not to return to whatever it is that’s keeping him in that constant state of alert.
“I’m okay,” I add quietly, because I can see the instinct already building in him, the resistance, the need to justify why he shouldn’t stop. “Everything’s fine right now. I’m safe.”
His jaw tightens.
Not in disagreement.
In conflict.
“But I need you to sit with me,” I say, softer now, because this isn’t about logic, it’s not about convincing him, it’s about reaching him, about asking for something I shouldn’t have to ask for but do anyway.
“I need you here.”
