Page 83 of Never Alone
I opened the door. I closed it behind me. Cole looked up.
I didn't look at him.
I sat down on the edge of the bed beside him, picked up the phone I had set down before I'd left, and pretended to scroll through something. I wasn't seeing the screen.
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
He waited.
"Just tired."
He let it go. He didn't believe me—I could tell from the way his shoulders settled—but he let it go.
We sat there in silence for what felt like a long time and was probably ten minutes.
Then there was a knock on our door.
Suzanne was standing in the hall with her clipboard tucked back under her arm.
"I'd like to thank you both for today."
She had a different posture now. Something in her shoulders had eased. The smile she gave us was the same one from the doorway, only it had something else inside it now. Recognition, maybe.
"Noah is a thoughtful kid. You should know that."
"Thank you," I said.
"I'll be in touch within the week. I'd like to file my report sooner rather than later."
She extended her hand to me first. I took it. She squeezed. Cole walked her to the door. I heard them speak briefly, low, at the threshold. The door closed.
He came back to the bedroom.
He stopped in the doorway.
"How do you think it went?"
"Good. I think."
"Yeah. I do, too."
He nodded. Didn't come in. Didn't say anything else.
"Cole."
"Yeah."
I almost told him.
I didn't tell him.
"Noah did good," I said.
"He did. He really did."
"We did good."
