“You cannot promise that.”
I close my eyes because she is right. The world has never respected my promises enough.
“I can promise I will fight to come back,” I say.
Her breath shakes. “That one I believe.”
Darlene comes upstairs twenty minutes later with Nara on holo-call, and the apartment becomes a battlefield of scolding women. Nara lectures Evie for not going to a clinic. Evie argues that being kidnapped is not convenient for scheduling. Darlene gets yelled at for ignoring her shoulder. I am instructed to hold a light, then told I am holding it too intensely.
“Can someone hold a light aggressively?” Evie asks.
Mira’s projected face glares. “He can.”
“I will reduce intensity,” I say.
Darlene snorts. “Good luck.”
By midnight, injuries are cleaned, tempers settle, and Darlene leaves only after extracting a promise that I will stay with Evie. She phrases it as an order and pretends not to care whether I obey.
I obey.
Evie and I do not sleep immediately.
We cook instead.
It is her idea. Trauma, she says, requires eggs. I do not understand the medical basis, but I follow instructions. Her kitchen is too small for both of us, which means every movement brings us close. I crack eggs too carefully and crush one by accident. She laughs for the first time since the restaurant, and the sound moves through me like medicine.
“You murdered that egg,” she says.
“It was structurally unsound.”
“It was innocent.”
“It lacked discipline.”
She bumps my hip with hers. “You’re terrible.”
“Yes.”
“Cute, though.”
“I am not cute.”
“You absolutely are when emotionally threatened by breakfast.”
We eat eggs and toast on the couch under an old blanket while rain ticks softly against the windows. She falls asleep against me before finishing her tea. I stay awake for hours, one arm around her, listening to Halo breathe beyond the glass. Every distant engine, every shout, every siren becomes a possible threat. Yet her weight against me anchors something I thought war had destroyed.
At dawn, she wakes with her cheek pressed to my chest.
“Did you sleep?” she asks.
“Some.”
“Liar.”
“Yes.”
She sighs and snuggles closer. “We’re going to have to work on that.”
