"Because I can't." Honest. Incomplete. The closest I can get to the truth right now.
Silence stretches between us. I wait for the argument. For him to tell me I'm wrong, that I'm overthinking, that I should just stay and stop being difficult.
"Okay."
That's it. Justokay. He offers no persuasion, no manipulation, no attempt to make me feel guilty for choosing to leave.
I look back then because I can't help it.
He's propped on one elbow, sheet pooled low on his hips, lamp catching the angles of his face and the ink on his shoulder blade. He's watching me with an expression I can't quite read. Not disappointed, not angry. Something softer. Something that looks almost like understanding.
"I'll see you in the morning."
"Try not to watch me walk away on the cameras."
"No promises."
The honesty startles a laugh out of me, sharp, unexpected. He's not even pretending he won't. The audacity of it, the complete lack of shame, is somehow funnier than it should be.
His mouth curves into something that's almost a smile. Softer than his usual control allows.
We're both insane. This is insane.
I slip out before the laughter turns into something else.
The landing is cold after the warmth of his room.
I cross back to the left hall, bare feet silent on the carpet runner. Chesca's door is still cracked three inches. I push it open just enough to see her. Still asleep, Aaron Bear tucked under her arm, nightlight casting soft purple shadows across her peaceful face.
Safe. Untouched by any of this.
My throat tightens. I count her breaths the way I have since the night she was born, since those terrifying NICU hours when counting meant she was still alive.
Uno, due, tre, quattro...
Forty-seven breaths before I make myself walk away.
My own bed is cold when I climb in. Too much space, sheets that don't smell like saffron and cedar, a mattress that feels wrong after the warmth of him.
I lie awake staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster I've memorized over eight years in this house.
One, two, three...
There are forty-seven. I've counted them a thousand times, the way I count Chesca's breaths when the fear gets too loud.
A door clicks somewhere across the landing. Faint. The monitoring room, maybe. I wonder if he's awake too, staring at screens instead of ceilings, watching the perimeter instead of counting cracks.
Sleep doesn't come for hours. When it finally does, I dream of his voice breaking on my name and the way he saidunderstoodlike surrender was something he'd give only to me.
fifteen
Angelina
The morning routine has become a performance.
I stand at the bathroom counter, Cole's fake pill pack in my hand, and listen for his footsteps in the hallway. There. The soft tread on carpet, pausing near my open door. Not entering. Just... present.
Watching. Always watching. Dio, even his surveillance has surveillance.