Page 33 of Jayson
After I showered and changed, Nina didn’t take me back downstairs.
She didn’t say a word—just handed me a fresh set of clothes folded with military precision, and waited by the door while I dressed behind the old screen in her room. When I emerged, hair damp and clinging to my neck, she simply nodded and led me hobbling down the hallway with that quiet authority that didn’t ask for obedience—it expected it. I guess she realized I was in no condition to try to run again. Not now, anyway.
Instead of the basement, she turned into a small sitting room where dim light filtered through thick curtains. The room felt dusty with memory and smelt like cedar and lemon oil. There was a velvet chaise near the hearth. Books lining the walls like old friends keeping vigil.
“Sit,” she said, gesturing with a tilt of her head, and I obeyed without a word.
The fire was already lit, low and crackling, its heat sinking into my skin like it belonged there. I sank into the armchair closest to it, the fabric soft, worn-in. The kind of chair I’d gladly fall asleep in without meaning to.
And for the first time in days, I felt it—warmth.
Not just from the fire, but something deeper. Thicker. Comfort soaked into the wallpaper and tucked into the seams of the room. Like someone had taken extra care here; someone saw me and decided, just for a moment, I didn’t have to be afraid.
It slipped into my bones, slow and unexpected, softening something that had been clenched tight in my chest since the night everything changed. I didn’t realize how cold I’d been until the warmth made me feel human again.
Nina sips her own tea with the grace of someone who’s survived too much to be shaken by the sight of a girl like me, barefoot and bruised in more ways than one. She watches me closely, not like I’m a prisoner, but like I’m a question she’s already halfway to answering.
“So,” she says eventually, setting her cup down with a gentle clink. “Keira.” She tilts her head. “How exactly do you know my grandson?”
And there it is. The question she’s been dying to know the answer to. The reason behind her kindness; she’s fishing for information he probably won’t give her. Otherwise, she’d know exactly what I’m doing here.
I grip my teacup tighter. The warmth suddenly feels too much.
Nina waits—composed, unhurried—but there’s an edge beneath her softness. A quiet persistence. She’s not just making conversation; she’s excavating.
And whether she means to or not, her words land like fingertips pressing into a bruise I’ve been trying to forget is there. Gentle—but deep. Digging into places I don’t let people go.
“I don’t,” I say softly.
Her eyes narrow just slightly. “You don’t?”
“I mean… not well.”
“Strange. He’s been away for many years, and then he turns up with you in tow. And you claim not to know him…”
I look down at my tea, my voice quiet. “You forget that I’m the one sitting in a cell in your basement.”
“And you don’t know why you’re there?” she asks.
“You’d have to ask him that.”
She leans in just a touch. “Did you know each other before he brought you here?”
I hesitate. A split-second too long. She knows there’s more. Knows I’m holding something back. Probably suspects she won’t get it from me today.
But still, she waits. Still, she watches. I look her dead in the eyes and lie with the softest truth I’ve ever spoken. Not the kind of lie that feels cruel or twists in your gut and sours your breath. This one tastes like truth, even as it burns in my throat.
“I think he has an unhealthy obsession with me.”
Her eyes stay locked on mine. Unmoving. Unshaken. That same warmth in her face, but something flickers just beneath the surface—concern, maybe. Like she’s quietly flipping through a thousand different memories of Jayson, trying to find where I fit in. She leans back in her chair with a slow, thoughtful sigh.
“Fair enough,” she murmurs, as though that’s all the answer she needs for now.
And just like that, the tension slips, melting into the steam that curls between us. It softens. But it doesn’t vanish. Because I can still feel it.
The line I drew. The secret buried beneath my skin like a poison. The memory of Jayson’s hand trembling ever so slightly as he pointed a gun at my head—and the decision he made when he didn’t pull the trigger.
That moment doesn’t belong to anyone else. It’s mine. And I swore I’d take it to the grave. Not even his grandmother will know.
