“I don’t?—”
“You do.”
The truth of it settled heavier than anything else had. Around us, the café went right on living—orders called, chairs moved, students studied, someone laughed too loudly near the door—but at our table, everything held still. I looked at Micah and saw no accusation there, only certainty. The kind born from years of knowing me too well. She knew how hard I worked. Knew how much I wanted to stand on my own merit. Knew, too, that somewhere along the way I had started treating support like contamination—as if love only counted when it asked nothing back and offered nothing practical in return.
Before I could respond, my phone buzzed against the table.
I glanced down.
Lo.
Of course it was Lo.
Because of course she would feel it. Not literally—not in any mystical, cosmic way—but close enough that sometimes it felt like she could. She had always had that timing. That uncanny ability to call at exactly the moment I was least prepared to pretend I was fine.
Micah saw it immediately, her brows lifting. “Speak of the devil.”
“I’m not answering that.” The refusal came fast. Automatic. My thumb hovered over the screen anyway, betraying me, caught between instinct and resistance.
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.” She reached across the table and slid my phone closer to me. “Answer it.”
I stared at the screen for one more second. My reflection glared back faintly in the glass—composed on the surface, cracks just beneath.
Then—I answered. The call connected immediately. Lo’s face filled the screen, bright and alive and entirely too perceptive for my current emotional state.
Even through a screen, she had presence. Effortless, radiant, impossible to ignore. Her hair fell perfectly around her shoulders, her expression open and warm, her entire energy the exact opposite of the tight, controlled spiral I’d been sitting in. Behind her, late afternoon light spilled gold across what looked like a broad kitchen counter strewn with evidence of a real life being lived—an open bottle of sparkling water, a vase of something white and fresh, a linen dish towel tossed carelessly near the sink. Everything around Lo looked soft. Expensive, yes, but lived-in in a way that mattered more. Not curated. Comfortable. Safe.
“There you are,” she greeted, her voice warm and full and completely unaware—or maybe fully aware—of the storm sitting across from her. “I was beginning to think you’d decided to drop out of society and become a mysterious academic recluse.”
Micah leaned into frame, grinning. “Too late. She’s halfway there.”
Lo’s smile widened. “Micah, darling. Are you keeping her from turning into a spreadsheet with a pulse?”
“I’m trying.”
“That’s my girl.”
The familiarity of it—the rhythm, the teasing, the easy affection—slipped into the tension like a crack of lightthrough a sealed room. It changed the air around the table. Just enough. My shoulders, which had been locked somewhere near my ears for most of the last hour, gave a fraction. My grip on the phone loosened. Across from me, Micah settled back with the small, satisfied look of someone who knew this was exactly the interruption I needed, even if I was too stubborn to admit it.
I huffed out a breath, “Hi, Lo.”
Her gaze shifted to me fully then. And everything changed. Because she saw it. Immediately.
There was no transition. No gradual realization. One second she was smiling, the next her expression softened, sharpened, focused—all at once. The kind of awareness that came from knowing someone deeply enough to read what they weren’t saying.
Her smile softened. “What’s wrong?”
I hesitated.Deflect. Downplay. Control.
The old sequence slid into place so naturally it almost soothed me. If I kept it small, maybe it would stay small. If I named it lightly, maybe it wouldn’t swallow the rest of the afternoon whole.
“Nothing,” I replied lightly. “Just finals.”
Her expression didn’t change—which was so much worse—because she wasn’t fooled. Not even slightly. “Beatriz,” she crooned, gently but firmly, “don’t do that thing where you pretend everything is fine when it very clearly isn’t.”