Page 75 of Jax
My shoulders sagged, exhaustion leaking into my bones like rain through rusted seams. I stared down at the half-eaten pancakes, sticky syrup smeared across the plate like proof that I was still human. That I still needed something.
That’s when I felt it, that crack, small but deep, running down the center of my chest, like a stress fracture just beginning to split.
I put the plate aside slowly, hands trembling just enough to betray me. “I can’t talk to him.”
Sully didn’t flinch. Didn’t push. Just nodded, like he’d been waiting for those exact words.
He didn’t ask who. Of course he didn’t. He knew.
“He was good to me,” I said, the words scraping out like a secret I hadn’t meant to share. “Too good.” My throat burned. My fingers curled into the blanket like I could anchor myself there. “And now I hate him for it. Because it felt good. And I don’t deserve it.”
Sully didn’t interrupt or try to soften it. He just sat, eyes quiet, shoulders relaxed, letting me bleed truth at my own pace.
“I can’t explain why,” I choked, heat rising up my spine. “But I don’t deserve his kindness. His goodness.” My voice broke. “I can’t afford to let myself want things like that.”
I expected pushback. Something gentle. Reassuring. Some version of: of course you deserve kindness. But he didn’t give me any of that.
“Sometimes, allowing yourself to be held isn’t about what you deserve,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s about survival.”
The silence after was louder than anything in the room. Not empty. Just honest.
“I don’t know how to make it stop,” I said, the words scraping out more honest than I intended. “The panic. The wanting. It’s all tangled, and I can’t tell what’s mine and what I’m stealing.”
Sully stood slowly, knees cracking like the floor had held him too long. He crossed the room with that quiet ease and crouched next to the bed. Not touching. Just close.
“You breathe through it,” he said, voice low and even, like he knew the shape of every wound I was trying not to name. “You let it be messy. And you stop trying to earn your right to feel.”
I stared at him, hollowed out. Exhausted down to the marrow. “And what if I can’t?”
His gaze didn’t waver. Didn’t soften or brace. Just met my eyes with steady focus that made it impossible to look away. “Then we sit in the dark until you can.”
That was the cruelty of kindness—how it offered no absolution, only presence. It didn’t solve the pain or close the wound. It simply saidI’m not afraid of your damage. And somehow that made it worse, because it stripped away every excuse I’d built for why I deserved to suffer alone. He didn’teven know the truth of why I felt so guilty, and he still offered me comfort without expectation.
But this time, I didn’t weaponize it. I didn’t bite back, or build a wall, or twist the softness into distance. I just let it settle. Let it bruise. Let it be heavy and human. I let myself want something—comfort, maybe. Forgiveness. Or just proof that needing connection didn’t make me weak.
Maybe survival wasn’t always about escape. Maybe sometimes it meant staying. Sitting still. Letting someone else keep watch while you remembered how to breathe.
18
Stella
I didn’t knowwhat I expected when I finally left my grief cave. Maybe a few veterans drinking under the stars, quietly stewing in feelings they refused to name. What I found instead was shirtless chaos.
I’d come down from my room around dinner time, slinking through the halls like a displaced ghost. Expecting a meal in progress, I’d instead found an empty house and a note sitting on the middle of the kitchen table, written in Jax’s steady, even hand.
Stella, we’ve all headed down to the pond to cool off. You’re welcome to join us if you get this. No pressure. If you decide to come, just head southwest from the back deck and look for the path with the hanging lights. You can’t miss it. Hope to see you there.
P.S. There will be beer and s’mores.
P.P.S. Don’t get any funny ideas. I can track all the security cameras remotely. Unless you want to see what the punishment for a third escape attempt would be…
-Jax
I stared at the message for a long time, a million thoughts running through my head. They’d really left me all alone in the house? Maddy had mentioned that the pond was about a twenty-minute walk through the woods; could Jax really get back fast enough to catch me if I tried to run? Something inside me said he absolutely could. The man was a ghost when he wanted to be.
In the end, loneliness won out. I’d been alone for the better part of three days, and I was starved for human interaction. And as much as I dreaded being around Jax, Sully’s words stayed with me. Survival wasn’t always escape. Sometimes it was staying. And as much as I wanted Violet to survive, I knew she would want me to survive as well. So I grabbed an apple and started munching on it as I headed out the back door.
I heard them before I saw them. The sound of raucous laughter and yelling drifted over the lip of the ridge like smoke as I reached the end of the lantern-lit path. As I crested the edge of the rise, my breath caught as I stared down at the oddest mixture of tranquility and chaos I’d ever seen.
