Page 160 of Jax
A pillow appeared beneath her head before I even noticed Jax had moved. He said nothing. Just knelt beside the couchand slid it into place with a gentleness no one would’ve expected from hands built for war, machines, and breaking things apart. But his hands knew how to offer comfort too—quiet, precise. I might not have noticed at all if I hadn’t been watching her breathe. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t resist. Just settled into the space he made, like her body already knew it was safe.
Jax started to rise, but I caught his hand without thinking. Not a grip. Just a touch, barely there, enough to ask him to stay. His skin was warm, fingers rough with calluses, and his stillness came without hesitation. He let the moment hold. I didn’t look away.
“You didn’t just save her,” I whispered, voice more breath than sound. “You saved me too.”
He didn’t answer right away. His gaze dropped to our joined hands, brow furrowed, not with discomfort, but with something quieter. Understanding, maybe. Reluctant, but real. When his eyes met mine again, there was a steadiness there that surprised me, a kind of knowing that didn’t require explanation.
“You were never the one who needed saving,” he said, his voice stripped of performance. Just a truth. Quiet and direct.
I didn’t argue. I wasn’t sure he was wrong. But I wasn’t sure he was right either. There were days I couldn’t find my own edges, days when memory alone held me upright. Maybe I hadn’t needed saving in the way he meant. But I had needed something. And he’d shown up. Every time.
“You still did it,” I murmured, more to myself than to him.
His hand tightened around mine for a breath, then let go. He rose and slipped back into the room’s rhythm like he hadn’t just steadied me at the edge of something I hadn’t realized I was standing on.
Violet shifted beside me, her fingers adjusting around mine. I brushed her hair back from her temple and leaned into the quiet, letting it stretch between us and settle into the spaces thatdidn’t require words. The house moved gently around us; low voices, light footsteps, the air no longer bracing for impact.
She didn’t speak, and I didn’t press. We stayed curled together while the evening unfolded slow and muted, each moment settling like dust through late light. The weight of her had changed. Less survival. More trust. Occasionally, her fingers twitched beneath the blanket, or her shoulders lifted like she was remembering where she was. But she didn’t pull away.
She stayed.
The house hummed quietly around us. Sully dropped to the floor near the fireplace with a pile of markers and a dog-eared coloring book. He sprawled out like a kid in a blanket fort and started coloring without commentary. At one point, he reached for a red crayon and muttered something about fireball dragons.
Beside me, Violet exhaled a breath I hadn’t known she was holding, a soft, shaking release that melted her deeper into my side. Her face turned toward my shoulder, nose brushing my collarbone, lashes fluttering shut. Not asleep. But close.
My arm remained around her, the other draped across her forearm where it peeked from the blanket. Her skin was still cool, but the sharp edge of panic had worn down into something softer. Something bare and steady. No explanations. No effort. Just the stillness she’d fought to reach.
Her eyes opened halfway. “Is it okay if I fall asleep here?” She whispered, barely louder than breath, like the question itself might break if spoken too loud.
It hit harder than I expected. Not the words, but the weight of them. The weeks of bracing buried inside that one quiet ask. Like a part of her still felt like rest was something that she hadn’t earned.
I nodded, then remembered she might not see it. “Yeah,” I murmured against her temple. “You’re safe. You can rest.”
Her body softened almost immediately, a slow release of tension moving through her like breath through bruised lungs. She shifted closer, burrowing beneath the blanket with quiet surrender.
The house didn’t hush itself in reverence. It simply continued, as if safety had always been written into its design. Voices moved in rhythm. Footsteps padded down the hall. Maddy’s laughter floated from the kitchen, light and teasing as she and the Boyds said their goodbyes before they headed out. The air carried the scent of lemon tea and something warm baking, like the house had found its own way to comfort us.
Nothing here was perfect. The walls had scars, just as we did. But the peace had never come from perfection. It held because we built it that way. Not delicate, but shaped by grief and grit and the hands of people who’d learned how to hold on without harm.
Once, this place had been designed for defense. For secrets and survival. But it had shifted beneath us. Slowly, it had become something else. Not a fortress. Not a refuge. Just a space where the worst had already happened, and somehow, we were still here. Breathing. Anchoring each other. Staying.
And as I sat there with Violet asleep against my shoulder, her hand warm in mine, I understood it wasn’t the house that changed because we needed it to. It changed because we had.
And maybe that’s what home really was. Not a place untouched by pain. Just a place still willing to heal, anyway.
37
Stella
Healing doesn’t arrivein a rush. It doesn’t kick down the door like triumph. It doesn’t burn bright or scream victory into the sky. It comes quieter than that, more patient, more precise. It moves like breath through bruised lungs. It curls into the corners of silence, finds you in the ache between heartbeats, the hollow right after a crisis. It arrives in small permissions, the first laugh that doesn’t feel borrowed, the first night you sleep without flinching awake, the first hour you don’t spend bracing for news that never comes.
And now, with Violet safe. Really, truly safe, the anxiety I’d been bracing against had nowhere left to go. For four days, I hadn’t let her drift far. I hovered near her shadow like a heartbeat, made her tea she barely drank, held her hand until our palms fused with sweat, and sat in stillness while she slept restlessly beside me. I didn’t count the hours. I didn’t question the weight. I just stayed—anchored, steady, necessary.
But now she didn’t need me to stay like that anymore. She was standing again. Eating. Humming under her breath. Sleeping without reaching. Her energy had returned.
And mine had nowhere to land.
My body didn’t recognize rest. My hands trembled in the absence of urgency. The silence wasn’t peace; it was a threat. Heavy. Charged. It pushed against my skin like a storm with no sky to shatter, and for the first time in weeks, I felt it all. Not just the fear or fatigue or fury, but the echo of what I’d kept buried under care. I had been steel for her. Now I needed to soften without breaking.
