“Rowan.”
“—conduct wants to talk to you next week, but I can walk you through what that looks like if you?—”
“Stop.”
I stop. She’s still watching me, but her face has changed. The careful composure is gone, and what’s underneath is worse: not anger, not disappointment, but something quieter and more final. She’s looking at me like she’s watching something break.
“You’re going to keep going, aren’t you?” she says.
“I just want you to know it’s handled.”
She sighs. “I know it’s handled. I never doubted it would be. That’s what you do.”
“I—”
“I didn’twantit handled.” Her voice is small, almost sad. “I didn’t wantyouto handle it.”
She looks at me and goes still — the way a decision looks when it’s just been made and the person is just waiting to deliver the news — and all of a sudden I don’t like my odds.
“Nina was right about you,” she says.
Everybody’s safe place. Nobody’s actual partner.
The words land before I can brace for them. I told Sloane those words at two in the morning, my jaw against her chest, her hand in mine, because I trusted her with the worst thing anyone had ever said about me.
Her hand drifts from where it’s been pressed against her, reaching for me, and I see the exact moment she catches herself. She redirects to push a strand of hair behind her ear, her arms folding tighter like she’s holding herself in place.
“When you found out about all of it,” she says, “why didn’t you come here?”
“I got out of a movie and I called you three times,” I say. “You didn’t pick up, so I?—”
“I told you why. I was trying not to pull you into the thing I knew you’d try to solve, Rowan.” She breathes in, then lets it out in one big exhale. “But you found Mason and banished him from the team, then went to Franklin and filed a conduct report with my name and my story in it.”
That’s when the doubt that’s been at the back of my mind hits full volume. She’s right, and I don’t have a defense. I called, and when she didn’t answer, I didn’t come to her door. I spent the night building a solution, then the morning executing it, and then I came here last.
Still, I keep trying to explain it. “That’s how the process works, Sloane. If you wanted Mason to be punished, I had to?—”
“You didn’taskme.” She sighs. “You left me a voicemail last night. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t fix it.’” Her eyes don’t leave mine. “Not sorry you didn’t ask me. Not asking if I’m okay.”
Her name in a file, her story submitted to people she’s never met, and I did that without asking because it was the fastest path to a solution.
“What was I supposed to do?” I plead. “It was hurting you, Sloane…”
“You were supposed to comehere.” Her voice is steady but her eyes are wet. “I didn’t answer because I’ve been too busy bawling my eyes out, hoping —desperatelyhoping — that somehow this wouldn’t reach you and impact you.”
“Sloane—”
“But it did reach you,” she sobs. “And when it did, you were supposed to ask me what I wanted, Rowan. I told you what my parents and others did to me last year, and you did the same thing. Idon’tneed someone to step in front of me, Rowan. I need someone to standbesideme.”
“Sloane—”
She swallows hard. “My parents did the same thing after Harrison. They handled everything. And the whole time I was sitting in my room and nobody came in and asked me if I was okay or what I wanted. They justhandled it.”
She’s describing my night and my morning and she’s also describing last year — people moving fast in every direction except toward her, making every decision except the one that includes her voice.
“I was protecting you,” I say, and even as I say it I can hear how thin it sounds.
“And I was protectingyou.” Her voice cracks but she pushes through it. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I could see what carrying everyone was already doing to you, and I knew if you found out, it would tear you and your team apart to fix it. And I was right.”
