Page 148 of Jayson
“What is this?” I ask, my voice shredded, hollow.
“Your circle,” Lula says. “Every woman needs one.”
“I’m not—” I start to say I’m not like them.
But then I stop. Because maybe I am. Maybe I always have been.
Mia sits on the floor in front of me, cross-legged like she’s thirteen again and sneaking secrets past bedtime. Maxine hands me a warm mug of tea. Her fingers brush mine. Solid. Real. Comfort without pity.
And Allegra?
She just kneels behind me and starts braiding my hair, like it's a ritual, like she’s piecing something back together one strand at a time.
They don’t ask questions. They just… stay.
Lula passes me a tissue. “Jayson didn’t know how to help you. But he knew who could.”
My chest caves in on itself. Because even in the ruin, even in his own grief, he still thought about me.
“He said you blamed yourself,” Maxine murmurs. “That you thought you let her down.”
I nod, silent tears tracking down my face.
“You didn’t,” Mia says, firm now. “You were a child, Keira. Achild they drugged and manipulated. What happened to Riley—what happened to you—is not on you.”
“But I forgot her,” I whisper. “I forgot everything. She died trying to save me, and Iforgot her.”
“No,” Maxine says gently. “Yousurvivedher.”
Her words hit like thunder. Like light cracking open something black inside me.
“I see her now,” I murmur. “I can’t unsee it. Her eyes. Her fear. The way she pulled me?—”
“She didn’t die for nothing,” Allegra says quietly, finishing the braid and tying it off. “Because you’re going to live. And you’re going to make damn sure the world remembers her.”
Lula leans in. “You don’t have to carry this alone anymore.”
My chin trembles. “It hurts so much.”
Maxine cups my cheek. “Good. That means your heart still works.”
They stay with me until the mug’s empty. Until my breathing slows. Until I start to believe, just a little, that maybe I’m not broken beyond repair.
Then the door opens one more time.
Jayson stands there. Eyes locked on me. Hands bloody. Shirt wrinkled. Hope bleeding from his expression like a man who just ran barefoot across glass to get back to the one thing he couldn’t lose.
Mia stands, gives him a small nod, and the women file out one by one, brushing his shoulder, their eyes telling him what words never could:we’ve got her now. She’s ours, too.
Jayson crosses the room and drops onto the edge of the bed.
“Did they help?” he asks.
I reach for him.
“No,” I whisper, pulling him into my arms.
“Theysavedme.”
