Page 68 of Jayson
Nina’s gaze softens. “No. You learn to carry it differently, that’s all.” She taps the rim of her mug. “Grief shifts its weight, but it never disappears.”
She sets her mug down with a quiet clink, the steam still curling in lazy tendrils from the rim. Then she lifts her gaze to mine—sharp, curious, unsettlingly perceptive. The kind of gaze that strips you bare without ever raising its voice.
“You’re on your own now, too,” she says.
It’s not a question. It’s not even pity. Just a statement full of soft certainty, like she’s already read the pages I’ve never let anyone see.
I blink. The words hit harder than they should. Because I never said it aloud—not to Jayson, not to Nina. I haven’t let myself fully feel it. But hearing it from her—this woman who’s half stranger, half unexpected anchor—somehow makes it real.
I swallow, unsure how to respond. “How do you know that?”
She shrugs, slow and deliberate, like she’s had time to observe me from every angle and isn’t afraid to call out what she sees. “Because I’m observant,” she says simply. “When your only family marries someone you don’t know, the least you can do is figure out who he’s letting into your house. It’s the bare minimum. For your own safety.”
A small pause. Her words hang in the air like smoke. Not cruel or suspicious. Just… honest and practical.
I nod, slow. “And? What did you find?”
“That you’re not dangerous,” she says. “Not in the way that matters.”
“You’re watching out for him,” I say finally. “For Jayson. I get that.”
She nods. “Of course I am. He’s all I have left.”
There’s no softness in the way she says it. Just fact. A fact that wraps itself around me and tightens.
Because that’s what we are, the two of us—pieces of what’s left. Fragments held together by instinct and necessity. She’s guarding him. I’m trying not to break him. And we’re both sitting in a kitchen pretending this house isn’t one more grief away from going silent forever.
She lifts her mug again, eyes steady on mine.
“Jayson told me you’re not going back to uni. What will you do about your schooling?” She asks, turning the conversation in a different direction.
“I don’t know,” I murmur, staring at the dark swirl in my cup. “It was my whole plan. The only plan I ever had.”
Nina shrugs, practical. “There are other ways to learn. The world’s bigger than one campus.” She leans forward, clasping her hands. “Life laughs at plans. Make a new one.”
As if it’s that easy. As if the wreck of my life is fertile ground instead of salted earth. I bite my tongue against a surge of frustration.
Soft footsteps cut through the quiet. Jayson appears in the doorway, T-shirt damp, a sheen of sweat caught in the hollow of his throat. Bright blue eyes flick from Nina to me, stormy like the sea, then soften by a fraction.
“Morning,” he says, voice gravelly from the run.
“Morning,” Nina and I answer in unison. She hides a smile behind her mug.
He grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, twists the cap, downs half of it. Tendons flex along his forearm; a faint scarcoils like smoke around his wrist. I catch myself staring and jerk my gaze back to my coffee.
“You okay?” he asks me, tone quiet enough Nina can politely ignore it if she chooses.
“Define okay,” I reply. The attempt at humor lands brittle.
Jayson’s expression shifts—concern, maybe guilt, definitely something that makes my pulse misbehave. He drags a chair beside me, careful to keep a cushion of space I didn’t know I needed until he left it.
Nina rises, collecting her mug. On her way past me she squeezes my shoulder—warm, steady, too knowing.
“Plans can change and still be worth making. Remember that.”
Her footsteps fade down the corridor, swallowed by the old house. What’s left behind isn’t silence; it’s a live wire humming between us.
Jayson shifts forward, forearms braced on the oak. Rainwater still darkens his hair at the temples; his T-shirt clings to a frame built for war, not breakfast tables. Yet his voice—low, even—shocks me more than thunder.
