I tell Bennett everything.
Just not this.
Never this.
He lives his life in straight lines, in rules and boundaries that don’t bend, while so much of mine has always existed somewhere in between. I’ve spent most of my life feeling split, never entirely one thing or the other, never fully belonging anywhere. Not with my family, not in the world I grew up in, not in the one I stepped into later.
Not until Whitney.
She made it feel simple, like belonging didn’t have to be earned or explained, like it could just exist.
“Well,” Bennett says after a moment, flipping another page in his magazine as if none of this carries any real urgency, “what now?”
I reach forward and take the journal back from him, holding it a little tighter than necessary as I tuck it against my side. “I don’t know,” I admit, though the answer feels closer than I let on.
“Maybe it’s time to call in Scooby and the gang,” he says lightly.
I don’t laugh this time.
He thinks he’s diffusing the tension, but it only sharpens itfor me, the casualness of it grating in a way I can’t quite ignore. My frustration has settled into something quieter now, something steadier and more dangerous, a slow-burning resolve that feels far more permanent than the anger that came before it.
There’s another thing I haven’t told him.
The nightmare.
The image of Phillip at my feet, the sound of my own laughter cutting through the dark in a way that didn’t feel entirely unfamiliar. I tell myself it’s grief, that it’s the natural result of losing someone so suddenly, of reading those journals night after night until the lines between past and present start to blur.
But it doesn’t feel like just that.
It feels like something else is waking up.
Something I thought I left behind.
“Shit,” I murmur, my attention snapping toward the window as a flash of hot pink catches my eye through the hedges. “Chrissy’s outside.”
Bennett’s eyebrows lift slightly, but he doesn’t move, just turns another page as if the information doesn’t require anything further from him. The detachment in it lands differently this time, heavier than it should, and for the first time a thought slips in that I don’t particularly like.
If it had been me, if I had been the one who died, would he be sitting there the same way now?
Reading.
Shrugging.
Moving on.
“Well,” I say slowly, already standing, the decision forming as naturally as breathing, “I guess there’s only one thing to do.”
“Oh yeah?” he hums, not looking up. “And what’s that?”
“Invite her to brunch,” I reply, the words settling into place with a certainty that feels almost inevitable.
I don’t wait for his reaction.
By the time he looks up, I’m already moving, crossing the room and stepping out into the fading light, my pace steady and deliberate as I head toward the neighboring yard.
Chrissy comes into clearer view with every step, bright and out of place against the carefully curated backdrop of everything Whitney built, and something tightens in my chest, something sharper than grief, more focused than anger.
If Phillip won’t talk, then she will.
