Stop, you braying fucking donkey.
Stop thinking about it now before you dig your grave deeper.
Nothing feels more impossible.
When I finally crawl into bed, there’s faint light outside the windows.
I’m too exhausted and pissed off to do anything except pass out into an unsatisfying sleep.
I oversleep.
Big fat surprise.
When I pry my eyes open again, it’s midmorning, and I should’ve been up almost two hours ago.
So much for my run today.
I run through the shower instead and change before heading down, not remotely ready to start the day. My brain feels like it’s been rolled in beach sand.
Cleo’s up already.
I hear her voice as I reach the bottom of the stairs, coming from the library. It sounds like she’s on the phone, speaking softly, every word a little strained.
That protective urge I’ve never managed to dim around her flares back to life. I head to the open door, pushing an ear against the wood as I listen in.
“Oh, yes. Right,” she says tightly.
Silence.
These doors are damnably thick.
There’s no way to hear what the other person says, but I listen harder anyway. The other person, it’s a toss-up between Fairfax and her father.
From what little I know, her old man’s an expert at making her sound disappointed. Like she’s hanging on to her composure by a thread.
None of my business, I know.
Still, it takes everything not to barge in and figure out what’s wrong so I can fix it.
Leftover dad instincts, I guess. Even if my interest in her feels anything but fatherly.
Being away from Kit for this long, I don’t know what to do with myself, and it blurs into my job.
Then she gasps.
I tense.
More silence.
Fuckity.
Dead, sickly silence, the kind where she’s barely breathing. I imagine her frozen with wide, glassy eyes, staring into space, shell-shocked.
“I see,” she whispers after a long pause. “This is just… it’s a lot. I’ll have to think about it. Okay, yeah. Bye.”
Screw it.
I push the cracked door open just in time to see her phone drop into her lap as she stares off into the distance.
