I wait until he’s gone before I move.
Carefully, I slide onto the other side of the bed, not jostling her, not disturbing the way she’s settled, letting my body sink into the mattress slowly so I don’t wake her.
She shifts anyway. Instinct. Her body turning toward the warmth. Toward me.
Her hand brushes my chest before she settles, her body curling into mine without waking, like she knows it’s safe, like she doesn’t need to question it.
My arm comes around her automatically, my hand settling against her back, holding her there, feeling the steady rise and fall of her breathing.
She’s warm. Relaxed. Soft in a way that she hasn’t been since we got her back. And it hits harder than I expect. How tense she’s been. How tightly she’s been holding herself together. How much she needed what just happened.
My hand moves slowly over her arm, my thumb brushing along her skin, grounding, steady, nothing that would wake her, just enough that if she shifted, she’d feel me there.
I press a kiss to the top of her head, breathing her in, letting myself sit in this moment, in the quiet of it, in the fact that she’s here.
That we have her. For a while, I don’t move.
I just stay there, holding her, letting the weight of everything settle somewhere it can be carried instead of fought.
Until something starts to feel off. Time has passed. Too much. Jackson should be back by now. Carefully, I ease out from under her, making sure she’s still settled before I slide off the bed and head out into the hallway.
The apartment is quiet. The lounge light is still on. I follow it. Jackson is sitting on the couch, Lia’s laptop open in front of him and he’s crying. Not loud. Not breaking down. But silent tears that he hasn’t bothered to wipe away.
“What’s wrong?” I ask quietly.
He looks up at me, his expression raw in a way I haven’t seen from him before.
“I read it.”
My gaze flicks to the laptop.
“You read what she wrote?”
He nods.
“I know I shouldn’t have,” he says quickly. “Don’t tell her. But… Zach…”
His voice tightens.
“You need to read this too.”
I don’t move.
“Why?”
“Because it’s everything,” he says. “Everything that happened to her. Everything she felt. Everything after.”
He swallows hard.
“She put her heart in this. And we’ve been… holding parts of her down without even realizing it.”
The words land. Heavy. I look at the laptop again. Then back at him.
“I’m not ready to read it yet.”
He studies me. Then nods.
“Yeah. I get that.”
