One week after the field trip.
I haven't asked her about it.
Not once.
Not when she came back to school with her hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands.
Not when she walked straight past me in the hallway and didn't look back.
Not even when she left one of her sketches folded up under the stairs - half-finished, shaky pencil lines, a girl made of glass and bandages.
She hasn't said a word to me since that night in the hotel room.
But I've kept showing up anyway.
Just like always.
Because I meant it.
I'd rather be scared with her than safe without her.
I'm sitting in our usual place. Under the stairs. Between the clanking of lockers and the world above.
I'm sketching something stupid.
A sandwich with eyes and a cape.
Senna would've rolled her eyes.
Then laughed.
Then asked to color it in.
Footsteps.
Soft ones.
I don't look up right away.
But I feel it.
The quiet shift in the air.
Like the moment just before rain.
And then-
"That tomato looks smug."
Her voice.
It's... real.
Wobbly.
Quiet.
But there.
And for a second, I forget how to breathe.
I glance up.
She's standing there.
Hair braided back, sleeves long, mouth curved into the faintest ghost of a smile.
I set the sketchbook down slowly.
Not sure what to say.
Not sure if saying anything will scare her away.
"It is smug," I manage.
She nods.
Sits beside me.
Not close.
Not far.
Just... beside me.
Like before.
Like again.
Silence settles.
But it's not heavy.
Just still.
Like a lake after a storm.
Then she says:
"I hated you. For a minute."
It doesn't sting.
I just nod.
"I know."
"I thought you set me up. That you were in on it."
"I would never-"
"I know," she cuts in.
Then softer:
"I know."
She picks at the corner of her sleeve.
Eyes on the floor.
"It was like... my brain went somewhere else. Like I wasn't in the room anymore. Like I was eleven again."
I look at her. Carefully.
She doesn't look back.
But she keeps talking.
"I thought if I got smaller, quieter, emptier... they'd stop seeing me. That the pain would stop noticing I was still alive."
Her voice cracks.
But she doesn't stop.
"I didn't want to die. I just... wanted a break. From being a person. From carrying it."
I don't say anything.
There's nothing I could say that would be enough.
So I do what she always needed.
I stay.
And I listen.
After a while, she exhales.
Wipes her eyes with her sleeve.
"Sorry. That was heavy."
"You don't have to apologize."
"I know. But I probably still will."
"I'll probably still tell you not to."
We look at each other.
And for the first time in a long time-
She smiles.
Small.
Tired.
But real.
"I missed you," she says.
And it feels like something sacred.
Like something finally unclenched in her chest and mine at the same time.
"I was right here," I say.
"I know."
And she reaches into her bag.
Pulls out a new sketchbook.