I close my eyes. “My voice. Not the sound. The choice to use it.”
“What would you say if you believed it would be heard?”
The words rise like something fragile, choosing to stand. “I would say I get to decide who I am now.”
“And do you?”
“I want to.”
“That is enough for today,” she says. “You showed up. You spoke. You breathed. That is healing.”
I stand, lighter than when I arrived. Peanut crawls back into her sling.
At the door, Dr. Chen says, “You are doing beautifully, even on the days it feels like you are not.”
I swallow. “Thank you.”
Outside, sunlight warms my face. Peanut lifts her head to sniff the air, decides it is safe, then curls back down.
“We’re getting there,” I whisper.
Her tiny purr feels like agreement. And for the first time, I believe her.
24
TINY
The afternoon sun hangs low over the compound, warm enough to draw the scent of fresh lumber from the garage walls. The brothers are calling it a day before we have church. Tools clink as they’re dropped into bins. Someone curses quietly. Bones and Dagger are arguing again over torque specifications.
Usually, the rhythm settles me. Today it drags tight across my nerves.
Syvannah is at her therapy appointment. She left an hour ago in Red’s SUV, with Peanut tucked in her sling like royalty being chauffeured. Before she climbed inside, Syvannah kissed me. Her fingers brushed my jaw, soft as a whisper, as if checking whether I was real.
“You gonna keep busy while I’m gone?” She asked.
“Always,” I said.
She offered me a real smile in response. Then she left, the sunlight catching her hair just long enough to make it hurt as she disappeared around the corner.
Now the bench she usually sits on is empty. My hoodie is still draped across her shoulders somewhere in town, warm from her body.
I pick up the bucket by the garage door and head toward the fence, gravel crunching under my boots. The strays hear the metal handle before the grain even shifts. A few cats weave between my legs like they own me. A pair of feral toms pretend not to care, lounging on a rusted oil drum and judging everything in sight.
A black-and-white dog slips out of the brush, ribs sharp beneath a thin coat. His tail wags in slow, cautious arcs.
“Come here, buddy,” I say, lowering into a crouch. He stops just out of reach, head down, ears flicking. Fear speaks a language I learned before I learned my own name.
“I’m not touching you,” I say gently. “Just eat.”
I set the bucket down and back up a step. The dog inches forward, nose twitching, then begins to eat in nervous bites.
Watching him hits deep. Not sadness. Not pity. Just a memory of the foster yard. The stray dog I couldn’t save. The first thing I ever tried to protect that I lost.
I rub a hand over my jaw and look toward the main building. Torch tosses a rag over his shoulder. Blayze laughs at something Trigger says. Red curses at his phone as if it personally betrayed him.
The world is moving again.
Syvannah is fighting to heal with everything she has. Even when she trembles. Even when her voice cracks. Even when she wakes, reaching for something she cannot name. She shows up anyway.