Page 34 of Letting Go

Chapter 13

At 6:59, I’m already in the booth. Same café. Same chipped tables. Same too-sweet peppermint candle flickering like it’s trying to be festive and not existential.

My hands are wrapped around a mug of tea I haven’t touched. It’s probably gone cold by now. I wouldn’t know. My fingers are numb, and everything tastes like blood and shame anyway.

Then she walks in.

Keira.

Wearing a hoodie that swallows her whole and sunglasses like she’s in hiding. At night. Because she’s subtle like that. Always has been. Like a drunk elephant on a trampoline.

She slides into the seat across from me, like she’s expecting me to lunge at her across the table. I don’t. I just blink. My throat’s too tight to speak, so I nod. It’s either that or scream.

“Hi,” she says. Voice small.

So small.

I nod again. Still no screaming. Points for me.

“Thank you for inviting me.”

I want to laugh in her face. Thank you? Like this is brunch. Like I’m doing her a favour.

But I’m here, aren’t I? I guess maybe I am.

She shrugs, picks at her nail polish like she’s fifteen again and worried I’ll yell at her for stealing my shoes.

“I figured I owed you that.”

There’s a long, aching pause, so quiet I can hear the guy in the booth behind me unwrap his sandwich. Turkey, probably. Smells dry.

I swallow hard. “When did it start?”

Her head jerks up.

The blood drains from her face so fast, I swear I can hear it.

“Leni—”

“I’m not asking to hurt myself.” Lie.

“I’m asking because I need to know. Was it before you turned eighteen?”

Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. I see the panic. It flares across her face like a flashbang. And I hate myself a little for knowing exactly what it looks like on her. For still reading her that easily.

“No,” she says. “Never.”

I close my eyes. Relief hits me in the stomach like a medicine ball. But it’s tangled with something worse.Disgust, maybe. Rage. I don’t know what to call this thing that keeps clawing up my throat.

“But you were still a teenager,” I say. “When it started.”

She nods.

“Keira,” I whisper, and my voice cracks around her name like it’s a curse. “You are just a kid.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she says, watery-eyed, bottom lip trembling like a damn cartoon. “I- I didn’t plan it. He just... he made me feel seen.”

Seen.

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