She probably has a whole life now. A partner, a home, this bookstore she just walked into like she belongs there. Probably thinks about me sometimes, maybe, in the way you think about things you survived.
The phone in my pocket buzzes again. Bianca. Fourth call. Or fifth. I've lost count.
I should answer it. Should go home. Should stop standing here like some lovesick teenager watching a girl who asked me eight years ago to let her go.
But seeing her just now, watching her smile down at that baby with an expression I never quite earned from her—proud and fierce and completely at peace—splits me open in a way I didn't know was still possible.
I'm not bleeding anymore. Bleeding implies there's something left to lose.
This is worse. This is wanting so badly it feels like my skeleton is trying to crawl out of my skin. This is years of nothing suddenly replaced by everything, all at once, and she's thirty feet away inside a bookstore with a baby that should have been ours and someone else who gets to?—
I can't finish the thought.
Can't stand here anymore either.
My feet move. One step, then another, carrying me down Locust in the opposite direction because I made her a promise and breaking it now would be just one more way I've failed her.
She asked me to let her go and I did.
Seeing her now doesn't change that.
Doesn't change the fact that she built something beautiful without me and I'm still here, hollow and empty, going through motions that stopped mattering years ago.
The next thing I'm aware of is Stellan's front door under my palm. No memory of getting in the car. No memory of driving here. Just this sudden, jarring awareness that I'm standing in my brother's foyer with my hand on wood grain and my chest heaving like I've been running.
The house is quiet. Not empty—Stellan's car was in the driveway, some expensive thing he bought last month because the old expensive thing bored him. But quiet in that way that means he's home and alone and probably working in his office.
My legs don't want to hold me. The walls seem closer than they should be, pressing in, stealing air I can't catch anyway.
"Declan?"
Stellan's voice comes from somewhere above me. The stairs. He's on the stairs, descending with that careful deliberation he uses when he's assessing a threat.
I try to answer but nothing comes out. Just this ragged sound that might be breathing or might be my entire body trying to turn inside out.
"Jesus Christ." His footsteps quicken. Then his hand is on my shoulder, steady and grounding in a way I haven't let him be in years. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
"I saw her." The words scrape out of my throat like broken glass. "I saw?—"
I can't finish. Can't make my mouth form the rest of the sentence because saying it makes it real and real means I have to actually process what I just witnessed on Locust Street.
Stellan's hand tightens on my shoulder. He steers me toward the living room, patient and firm like I'm a suspect he's walking to an interrogation room. "Sit down before you fall down."
The couch catches me. Expensive leather that feels perfectly worn in. Stellan likes nice things, but he makes them feel like they are part of a real life. Not for show. Not like my empty house.
He sits across from me, forearms on his knees, watching me with those steel-gray eyes that miss nothing. "Are you having a heart attack?"
"I saw Zola." I also might be having a heart attack. "She's here. In Philadelphia. She was on Locust and she—she had a baby, Stellan. A fucking baby strapped to her chest and she was smiling at it like?—"
The words jam up somewhere between my lungs and my mouth. I press my palms against my eyes because if I don't, something inside me is going to shatter and I don't know if I'll survive it.
"I know."
My hands drop. "What?"
Stellan's face gives nothing away. Never does. But there's something in his posture, the set of his shoulders, that tells me this isn't news to him. "I know she's in Philadelphia. I know about the baby. I know about the bookstore."
The world tilts sideways. "How—how long have you?—"
