Page 44 of Siren Problems
I squint at her. “If it starts with ‘I told you so,’ I reserve the right to throw somethingsmall.”
She holds up her hands. “Fine. No ‘I told you so.’ Just a gentle, loving reminder that you climbed onto a tidal emotional rollercoasterwithout checking the seatbelt.”
“I had a seatbelt,” I mutter. “It was just made of sex and false hope.”
Kai winces. “Oof. That’s... bleak. And relatable.”
I sigh and push back from the table, scrubbing my hands down my face. “I thought maybe... I don’t know. That he’d stay. That last night meant something.”
“It probablydid,” Kai says gently. “But he’s not built for soft landings, babe. He’s all storm and guilt and thousand-year-old self-loathing.”
“He said he wanted me,” I whisper. “And I believed him.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t mean it. Just means he might not know what todowith it.”
She hops down, shoving a half-empty smoothie into my hand. “Drink that. You’ve had three coffee potions and no protein.”
I take it automatically, but I don’t sip.
Mira peeks in from the doorway, arms full of scrolls and concern.
“I rearranged the leyline overlays from the wreck zone,” she says softly, “but... I can run them later. If you need time.”
I blink.
She never offers to delay analysis.
Not even for minor electrocutions.
“I’m fine,” I say too fast.
Both of them give methe look.
“You’re not sleeping,” Mira says.
“You’re not eating,” Kai adds.
“You’re compulsively tracking relic resonance patterns even when they’ve stabilized.”
“You also cried at that one siren ballad commercial yesterday.”
“That song isverymanipulative,” I grumble, but my voice cracks halfway through.
And suddenly, I feel it.
The crack inside me that Calder left behind when he walked out of that shack.
It’s not clean. Not sharp.
It’s soft. Slow.Exhausting.
Because it didn’t come from betrayal.
It came fromabsence.
From that quiet space he occupied so fully last night—and left just as fully by morning.
And the worst part?
