I swallowed.
“You end up here,” he continued. “Or at Mel’s. Or with Robin. You have a safety net now.”
I hadn’t let myself think of that because independence had always meant no net. Just me and whatever I could carry.
“You’re not alone anymore,” Eleanor said softly.
“And if he does turn out to be a controlling nightmare,” Alex added, “we’ll help you bury him.”
Eleanor elbowed him.
He shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
A small, shaky laugh escaped me.
“You’re falling in love with him,” Eleanor said quietly.
I didn’t deny it. “But love isn’t supposed to feel like a takeover,” I said.
“No,” Alex agreed. “It’s supposed to feel like a partnership.”
The word settled into me. Partnership. Not rescue. Not absorption. Not dependence.
“I don’t know how to build that with someone who can buy entire companies before lunch,” I admitted.
Eleanor reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Then tell him that.”
“And if he doesn’t get it?”
“Then you walk,” she said simply.
The clarity of it steadied me. I felt like I had found my footing again.
I sat there long after the words stopped bouncing around the kitchen.
It all rearranged something in my head.
“I think I see it,” I said slowly.
Eleanor tilted her head. “See what?”
“I’ve always been like this.”
“Like what?”
“Hyper independent and borderline feral about it.”
Alex smiled faintly. “That’s one way to put it.”
I ignored him.
“It didn’t start with Raph,” I continued. “It started when I was a kid.”
The memories came easier than I expected.
Dad at the kitchen table with a stack of envelopes. Bills spread out like puzzle pieces. He’d hum while he sorted them, distracted by whatever engine he’d been tinkering with that day. He always made sure there was money. There was always food. We weren’t poor in the way people think of poor. We just . . . drifted.
The power would get shut off sometimes. Not because we couldn’t pay, but because he forgot. Late notices would pile up because he set them somewhere “safe.” And somewhere along the way, I started keeping track.
