Page 63 of Top Shelf

“I don’t know how to get there,” I confess, brokenly, unable to look Lucian in the eyes. “I don’t know how to make it out.”

I feel him tense, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“What happened to me…it’s still happening. Every day I wake up, and it’sthere. Like a part of me is still trapped on that cold, hard ground. Still hurting. Still screaming.”

There’s a long silence. Then I feel it. His hand, warm and steady. His fingers brush the inside of my wrist, grounding me.

His voice is rough when he finally speaks. “That’s because you’re trying to carry it alone. You’re still trying to survive in a world that acts like it never happened.” His thumb drifts across the soft skin of my inner wrist, back and forth in a surprisingly soothing motion.

His voice hardens, just slightly, with conviction. “You’re still in the fire, and you haven’t let it kill you.”

I look up, eyes stinging. He stares back at me likeI’m the miracle.

“You’re already surviving,” he says. “You just don’t know it yet.”

15

WREN

By the timewe make our way back to the table, we’ve acquired two new tablemates: Ronan and Silas. I pause at the edge of the stacks, blinking at the way they have completely taken over the remainder of the table like it belongs to them. Textbooks spread out, laptops open, steaming coffees in the center of the chaos. They are working in silence, oblivious to my watching eyes, as if this were any regular day.

I hover for a second too long.

“Come on,” Lucian encourages, lightly pressing his large palm against the small of my back. The heat of his touch bleeds through my shirt, grounding and disorienting all at once. “They won’t bite.”

He moves to step past me, glancing back over his shoulder. That twinkle is back in his eyes again, and I find it even more impressive than I did before—the fact that he can find humor after all he’s been through. His mouth tugs up. “Unless you ask them to.”

I roll my eyes and force my feet to move, though every step feels uncertain.

The guys barely glance up as I lower myself back into myseat. No greetings. No teasing. They just continue with whatever work they were doing, as if I belong here too.

It throws me.

Because I don’t. Isolation is a significant part of my existence. The only time when I haven’t been truly alone is for that brief period last year when I met Dylan and we became fast friends. She’s the only person I’ve ever let in. When she walked into my library that day, I’d seen myself in her. I’d recognized that need for an escape. A sanctuary. Somewhere away from the world where you could just shut off.

Even though she hadn’t known who I was back then, she understood a lot of my pain. Understood the inability to trust the people around you. That feeling of being an outsider. Of not belonging but desperatelywantingto. I saw myself in her—or the version of myself I wanted to be because Dylan Callahan isn’t like me. She’s stronger. She’s a force to be reckoned with. She took all her pain and heartache and used it to build herself up.

Whereas I let mine shatter me.

Starting over at Valehurst, that isolation had crept back in, and I’d welcomed it like an old friend. Familiar. Comfortable, even.

Now…

I chance a look across the table. Silas is scribbling something in a notebook, his head bowed, blond hair hanging just enough to hide his eyes. Ronan is typing steadily, earbuds in, nodding along to something only he can hear.

There’s a rhythm to them. The kind that comes from knowing each other well, like instinct.

Lucian pulls his chair in opposite mine and nudges my laptop with a knuckle. “You gonna contribute or just keep staring at us like a creeper?”

Heat rises to my cheeks. “I was just…thinking.”

He grins, leaning in with a mock-conspiratorial whisper. “Thinking about how hot I look when I focus? It’s okay. You’re not the first.”

I scoff and open my mouth to fire something back, but before I can, Silas slides a notebook across the table. The page is already torn out, his slanted handwriting neat and direct:

Get on with your own work instead of harassing her.

Lucian snorts, but I miss whatever his rebuttal is as Silas quietly pushes a to-go coffee cup toward me, along with a brown paper bag. Flicking my gaze his way, I use a finger to peer inside the bag. Inside is a cinnamon roll that smells delicious. Wrapping my fingers around the hot coffee cup, I bring it to my nose. Oat milk honey latte.