Page 93 of Before the Bond
I knew how to leave. I’d done it enough times that it felt automatic.
I couldn’t stay in this motel room forever.
And I can’t go back, I reminded myself. No matter how much it hurt, whatever obligation I had to them was over.
I looked at the book Jake had given me, still in my hand. I lifted it to my face without really deciding to.
It smelled like the fireplace. Wood smoke. Paper. I’d read aloud to Jake from books like this one on the nights when he was in too much pain to sleep. He’d listened with his eyes closed and corrected my pronunciations of the local names, andI’d pretended to be annoyed, and it had been one of the better things I’d done in a long time.
I set the book on the nightstand. I tidied Jake’s empty cup next to it.
I thought about what choosing meant.
Not drift into it the way I’d drifted into every city since I was eighteen. Not let grief make the decisions while you keep your hands busy with the practical work of moving. Not stay somewhere because leaving got complicated, or leave because staying required something you weren’t sure you had. An actual choice — both hands on it, clear-eyed about the cost, no future version of yourself left to say you didn’t know what you were walking into.
When did I ever actually make a choice for my own life?
I picked up assignments because they were available. Left cities when contracts ended, one clean handoff to the next, no gap wide enough to fall into and actually feel anything. I’d kept moving because motion had felt, for a very long time, like the same thing as being okay.
“Seven years,” I murmured.
I thought about what I wanted to do with the next seven.
I looked at the state I’d been in before Jake knocked. The soggy pillow. The laptop I’d opened without being able to type a single destination into it.
I’d told myself I had nothing here.
I looked at the book.
I thought about what Jake had said.
That wasn’t true. There was something. The question was whether I was too scared to go back and reclaim it.
I closed the laptop. I lay back on top of the covers without unpacking. I stared at the ceiling in the dark for a long time.
I didn’t sleep. But the restlessness I’d felt all night had changed quality. It was the kind that kept you up because you’dalready figured out what you were going to do, and you were just waiting for it to be morning.
Chapter 20
Caleb
The study felt smaller than it used to.
Nothing in it had changed. Same shelves. Same desk. Same window.
I was the thing that was different.
I stood behind the desk longer than necessary. The surface was cool, solid and unmoving.
I'm still functional, at least. That was the phrase I kept using. I wasn't well or strong, but at the very least I could do what I needed to do.
I had to finish this before I ran out of time.
Maureen appeared in the doorway with a bowl of something warm and set it on the corner of the desk without a word. She tracked my vitals. The charts made me miss Olivia.
"You should try eating again," she said.
Ever since I started waning, Maureen came by to check if I was eating, drinking. I used to indulge before, but lately I couldn't bring food to my mouth. I couldn't taste anything, and even if I could, it wouldn't have done anything. The bond was fading. Nothing worked without it.
