Page 83 of Shattered

When the sobs finally slowed, I pulled back. Then I picked up my phone with hands that still wouldn’t stop shaking.

I opened the thread of Axel’s unanswered messages. Days of “thinking of you”and “I’m here”and “please let me know you’re okay.”

He’d refused to leave even when I’d told him to.

His love stayed even when I pushed it away. I texted him.

Delia

I found the journal. Can we talk?

Axel

I’ll be there in twenty minutes.

CHAPTER 18

Axel

The text camewhile I was staring at my laptop—work was the only distraction I had now.

My heart stopped at the notification; my fingers moved before my brain caught up.

Then I was moving. Laptop abandoned mid-report. Then I caught my reflection in the mirror.

My shirt was wrinkled beyond saving, and my hair was doing things that defied physics. I probably smelled like old coffee, desperation, and three days of not caring about basic hygiene.

I couldn’t show up looking like this. Not when Delia was finally reaching out.

I moved with purpose—clothes off, shower on. The water was scalding, but I didn’t adjust it. Just scrubbed quickly, trying not to think about the last time I’d showered with this kind of urgency.

I dried off fast, grabbed the first clean clothes I found. Jeans. A shirt that didn’t look like I’d been wearing it for three straight board meetings. I ran my hand over my jaw and felt a week of beard.

It would have to stay.

I grabbed my keys from the counter.

The journal. She’d said she found a journal.

What had been in it? What had changed between the silence and this text?

I made it to my car, started the engine, pulled into traffic. My hands were shaking so badly I had to grip the steering wheel tighter than necessary. I needed to calm down. To drive there in one piece.

When I finally pulled up, my heart was doing something irregular in my chest. Racing too fast. Skipping beats. Trying to prepare me for whatever was about to happen.

Good news or bad news. Closure or beginning. I didn’t know which.

I knocked on the door.

Daniel opened it looking exhausted but something else too. Something that might have been relief. “Hey.”

“Is she?—”

“Inside. She’s been waiting.” He stepped aside to let me in. Then grabbed my arm before I could move past him. “Don’t mess this up.”

“Extremely helpful advice.”

“I’m serious. Whatever she says in there, don’t mess it up.”