Page 147 of Jayson
I close my eyes and see her face. Imagine her staring back at me, her smile trapped beneath cement. I don’t think I’ll ever stop seeing it.
“She was fourteen,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“She wasa kid,Jayson.”
“So were you.”
The sob that leaves me is worse than any scream. It shatters something deep, something I didn’t even know was still whole.
“Tell me they’ll pay,” I whisper.
He doesn’t hesitate. His voice is cold steel.
“They already have.”
And still, I can’t stop crying.
I don’t remember fallingasleep.
I don’t remember the storm tapering off or the soft weight of Jayson’s arms pulling me in.
All I remember is pain. Pain that sank so deep it felt like it rewrote my bones. Pain that turned my heartbeat into a funeral drum.
And now? Now it’s morning. But the sun doesn’t feel warm.
I hear voices downstairs. Quiet. Low. Familiar.
Jayson’s gone from the room, but I can feel the imprint of him still on the pillow beside me, the scent of rain and smoke lingering in the sheets like he’s afraid to let me wake up alone.
A knock sounds gently on the door.
Not sharp. Not intrusive.
Soft.
I don’t answer.
But it opens anyway.
It’s Lula. She steps in with a kind of reverence, like she’s walking into a church and I’m something sacred that’s been shattered on the floor. Her eyes find mine where I’m still curled in the blanket, the tear-stained pillow beneath my cheek, the tangle of limbs I haven’t moved in hours.
“Hey, baby,” she says, voice a whisper. “He told me.”
I blink slowly.
Lula walks over, sits beside me without asking. Her arms don’t come around me right away. She just sits, present. Steady.
“I brought someone,” she says.
Another soft knock.
Then the door creaks open again.
Maxine steps in first. Her hair’s tied up, eyes rimmed with that soft sadness only survivors know. Behind her, her sister Mia. Then Allegra.
I sit up slowly, the blanket clutched around me like armor.
