Page 95 of The Exit Strategy

The stairs light up as I make my way to the driveway, where her silhouette passes by her window before her new porch light turns on.

She’s leaving it on. For me. Like an open door she’s daring me to walk through.

I don’t know what comes next. There’s still Natalie, the foreclosure, the loans, the blackmail. Then there’s the awards dinner, the county tax assessment, and the full catastrophic weight of everything I haven’t said waiting on the other side of tonight.

But for the first time in six years, the structure feels sound because we’re on the same side now, and for once, I’m not rebuilding in the dark.

19

A LOVE KNOT

JUNIE

Here’sthe thing aboutnotbuilding walls—it requires a different kind of energy than I’ve ever spent.

Hiding is easy. A reflex. Something I’ve been building the muscle for since that first time my mother forgot to pick me up in kindergarten and I sat on the curb for forty-five minutes deciding there was something wrong with me.

Even after Nolan dragged the red wagon to the school to get me because I was too small to walk all the way home, it was a lesson I never really forgot.

Not hiding though, that feels like holding a breath underwater with no way to release it without sinking.

I’m still in Cole’s T-shirt. When I answered the door last night, I assumed it would be Nolan ensuring I got home safely, and since he saw me sleep in this shirt every night for a year after Cole left, I figured it didn’t matter if he saw it now.

I wasn’t expecting to flaunt my battered heart to the man who caused the damage or for that man to completely undo everything with a single sentence.

Wrapped in his shirt now, I can almost feel his nameacross my shoulders, his number on my back. It creates the kind of stupid happiness that spreads through my chest—the kind I’ve spent twenty-four years training my body to perceive as a threat.

And after Cole left, I stood in front of my bathroom mirror having a very serious conversation with myself about what to do with all of it.

The only conclusion I came to was: Absolutely nothing yet, so it didn’t matter if I stayed wrapped in cotton that he once wore, enveloped in that stupid happiness for a little longer.

I think that’s enough decisions for a Saturday morning.

Ten minutes later, Fen is up to no good.

Juniper & Her Berries:

Fen: Waffles on.

Fen: Juniper Mercer, get over here.

Fen: Don’t make me send Cole after you.

Having Cole in my space again so soon feels like a dare I’m not ready to take, so I fling his T-shirt over my head. It takes me less than three minutes to get dressed and run down my front steps.

Fen has, in fact, commandeered the waffle iron, but by the state of the mess currently smoking around him, I’d say his confidence is misplaced.

Nolan’s at the island with a large protein shake and appears to be reading medical charts on his laptop, except he doesn’t scroll up or down even once, which I find suspicious, knowing him. He likes to have all the facts before he comes to a conclusion.

Nana Mae is hovering around Hudson at the kitchentable, but it appears she’s just trying to annoy him into participating in life away from the legal documents he has spread out before him.

Cole is at the stove and is the first one to notice me. His shoulders shift—that specific reorganization of his awareness. It happens whether we’re fighting or not. Whether I’ve kissed him or told him to stop knocking on doors. My presence in his space has always done something to him, and I’ve spent years pretending that isn’t the most significant thing he’s ever shown me.

He turns slowly, as though he’s afraid he’ll spook me, and his gaze instantly lands on my shirt—more specifically, the lack of his shirt. Disappointment flares before he has time to recover, but he hands me a mug of coffee with my favorite oat milk and goes back to his eggs.

I stand next to him at the counter, my back to my brother, while pretending to add sugar to my coffee. The tilt of his lips tells me he’s fully aware of what I’m doing—creating a moment of privacy in a room full of people.

“Morning,” he says. Low. Just loud enough for my ears only.