Page 122 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
And I am not letting those thoughts exist.
She is alive.
That is the only thing that matters.
That is the only thing I allow.
Everything else, doesn’t get space.
I sit forward in the chair, my elbows braced against my knees, my hands clasped together so tightly I can feel the pull in my knuckles, the dried blood on my skin cracking faintly every time my fingers shift. It’s everywhere. On my hands. My arms. My shirt. The fabric has stiffened where it soaked through, clinging to my skin in a way that I am very deliberately not thinking about.
Because if I start, if I let myself remember what that blood looked like on her, I won’t stop.
Across from me, Zach leans back against the wall, shirtless, his skin still streaked with her blood, his hands resting at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them now that they’re not holding her together anymore. Every now and then his fingers flex slightly, like the muscle memory is still there, like his body hasn’t caught up to the fact that she’s not in his hands anymore.
His head tips back briefly, his eyes closing for a second.
Then opening again almost immediately.
Like he doesn’t trust himself to lose focus for even that long.
Jackson is the only one who hasn’t stopped moving.
He sits, stands, sits again, the clipboard in his hands like something solid he can anchor himself to, the pen moving in sharp, deliberate strokes before pausing, hovering, then pressing down again.
“Full name,” he mutters under his breath as he writes, his voice tight, controlled in a way that tells me exactly how close he is to breaking. “Liana Bellandi. Date of birth—”
His voice catches.
It’s small. Barely there. But I hear it. He swallows it down hard enough that I can see it in his throat.
Keeps writing.
“Emergency contact,” he continues, quieter now, like the words cost him more this time. “Elijah Bellandi.”
The sound of my name lands in the space between us and something in my chest tightens in response, something sharp and immediate that I don’t let myself follow.
I don’t look at him.
I keep my gaze fixed ahead.
On nothing.
On everything.
On the doors she went through.
On the last place I saw her.
On the point where she disappeared out of my reach.
“She’s not dead.”
The words leave me before I realise I’ve said them.
Jackson’s pen stills. Only for a fraction of a second. Zach’s head tilts slightly where he stands.
Neither of them respond. They don’t need to.
