It was a collection.
Fragments. Statements. Confessions without context.
He said no one would believe me.
He was wrong.
He said it was a misunderstanding.
He said I wanted it.
He said I would regret this.
He said I would lose everything.
He said I wouldn’t do anything about it.
And in the margins, in a different hand, written in darker ink, came the replies.
They always say the same things.
They’re always wrong.
He said I would forget. I didn’t.
Another page:
We survive, we endure, and when the time comes, we strike.
We are the black widows they never saw coming.
No names. No dates. No beginnings or endings. Just voices layered over one another, warnings pressed into paper like something meant to be found, not written.
The more I turned the pages, the clearer it became that this journal wasn’t a beginning. It was a continuation. Something that had existed long before it ever reached my hands.
Maybe Madam LaRoux was right.
Maybe you don’t choose it.
Maybe it chooses you.
The toaster pops, pulling me back into the present. I blink, the kitchen coming back into focus as I plate the toast and carry it to the small table in the nook. Bennett joins me a moment later, setting down our plates before taking his seat across from me.
Outside, the morning is soft and bright. Dew clings to the palm leaves, catching the light as it lifts over the water, the bay shimmering in the distance. It’s the kind of morning I’ve always loved, quiet and unhurried, as if the world hasn’t quite decided to wake up yet.
We eat in that familiar silence, the kind that never felt uncomfortable between us. Bennett and I have always had that, an ease that doesn’t require constant conversation, a connection that exists in the spaces between words. Sunday mornings, especially, have always belonged to us.
And yet, even here, even now, my thoughts refuse to settle.
They drift back to yesterday, to the café, to the unease that settled over all of us as we talked about the Seminoles. To Maverick’s voice when he told me what Butch had said, the quiet threat of something bigger, something that hasn’t surfaced yet.
I haven’t told Bennett that part.
Not because I’m hiding it, but because I don’t want to give it more weight than it already has. Because I’m tired ofthinking about it, of letting it consume every corner of my mind.
He’s right.
I have been fixating.
