Page 33 of Fire and Silk
Maybe she’ll notice. Maybe she’ll call. But what could she even do? What could she say that anyone would believe? That her best friend vanished into thin air? No leads, no help. Just another poor girl whose calm gets swallowed by the world.
Another poor girl with no power. Like her.
Like me.
My hands slide beneath me, shaking, trying to anchor myself, but the floor is slick with my own tears now. I fold deeper, curling my knees to my chest. My shoulders quake. A sound claws out of my throat—a strangled gasp caught between a sob and a breath that never finishes.
The calm in the room wraps around me like a net.
The images of my past come back, slicing into the darkness like glass catching light.
Back to three years ago, after my mother died. In the kitchen. The smell of lilies clinging to everything sickening.
I’m standing at the sink, arms elbow-deep in soapy water, wearing that awful black dress that clings to my ribs and hugs nothing. The sleeves are rolled up, but they keep slipping down. I keep pushing them back up, over and over, because my hands need something to do.
There’s a plate in my hand. I scrub it like it’s done something to me.
Outside the window, I can see Marco. He’s out back with our dog, the leash dangling in one hand, a trash bag in theother. He’s doing the chores like it’s any normal Thursday. Like we didn’t just lower our mother into the ground less than three hours ago.
The sink water is warm. I hate it. It’s the only warm thing in the whole house.
I don’t hear Mico come in.
I just feel him.
His presence fills the air beside me like heat— grounding. I can smell him before I see him: rain and cologne and something , like laundry soap and aftershave.
He steps next to me. Doesn’t speak.
Then softly, “Let me help.”
My hands stop moving.
The plate slips.
It shatters against the side of the sink—porcelain splintering against metal, a sharp echo.
The sound shatters me, too.
My breath halves and then it breaks, full-bodied and sudden.
I turn toward him like the grief was just waiting for permission.
I crash into him.
My arms wrap around his waist, hands fisting the back of his shirt. My face presses into his chest, and I cry—really cry—for the first time since the call, since the doctors, since the coffin closed.
His arms wrap around me in return.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers, rocking me. “You’re okay.”
I shake my head against him. My body trembles and the sobs keep coming, wrenching from me like water from a burst pipe.
“Don’t go,” I murmur, words muffled in his shirt. “Don’t leave.”
He pulls back, just enough to meet my eyes.
“I’ll never leave you,” he says, voice low and steady.
