Page 147 of Joker

That word lands heavy. Because it always does.

“I was supposed to be in the backseat with her,” I say, voice rougher now. “My sister. She wanted me back there because she got scared in storms. I was being a little asshole about it. Wanted the front seat. Threw a fit till my dad gave in.”

Raven doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe too loud. Doesn’t make this harder by trying to fix it.

Good.

“I’ve spent years knowing if I’d just shut the fuck up and sat in the back like I was supposed to, maybe…”

I stop there.

Because maybe is a poison and I know it. Because maybe won’t bring anybody back. Because maybe has already eaten enough years of my life.

Raven sets her mug down on the porch rail and steps closer. Slowly. Giving me every chance to pull away.

I don’t.

Her hand slides over mine where it grips the railing, warm and steady and somehow more grounding than it has any right to be. “That wasn’t your fault,” she says quietly.

Normally, I’d hate that sentence. Would probably push back on instinct. But coming from her, standing here after everything she trusted me with last night, it doesn’t sound cheap. It sounds earned.

So I don’t argue. I just turn my hand over and lace my fingers through hers. And stand there.

Holding on.

***

Later, after dinner and after the kids have burned through whatever leftover energy they had by turning the downstairs hall into a racetrack and after the women finally corral the chaos into something resembling bedtime, I find myself leaning in the doorway of the room Lexi’s been sleeping in.

She’s out cold. Bunny tucked under one arm. One little hand fisted in the blanket near her face.

The nightlight plugged into the wall casts a soft gold glow over the room, catching in the wild dark curls spread across the pillow and the tiny, peaceful rise and fall of her chest.

I don’t move. Can’t, for a second. Because all at once, it isn’t Lexi I’m seeing.

Not fully.

It’s another little girl too. A different one. Brown pigtails and skinned knees and a laugh I still remember if I let myself go too quiet for too long. My sister.

I don’t think about her much on purpose. Not because I don’t love her. Because I do. Because I always will. I just learned a long time ago that some grief gets quieter if you stop looking directly at it.

But standing here now, watching Lexi sleep with Bunny tucked under her arm like the whole world can’t touch her as long as that stuffed rabbit is still close enough to grab in the dark, I can’t keep the overlap from happening.

And maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe this is the part where I stop pretending the old pain and the new love don’t live in the same place. Because they do.

That’s the truth of it.

That little girl in that bed matters to me in a way I didn’t see coming and definitely didn’t plan for. Not abstractly. Not as part of Raven.

As Lexi.

As herself. As bug and sticky fingers and impossible questions and little feet thudding down the hall toward me like she’s already decided I’m safe enough to seek out when she wants something. And standing here in the low gold light with the whole clubhouse quieting down around us, I realize something with a force that feels almost physical.

No one takes another little girl from me. No one. Not while I’m breathing.

The promise settles in my chest without words at first.

Then they come anyway.