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My chest squeezes at her name. “Oh no, is she okay? Teething’s the worst, isn’t it? Is she running a fever or just miserable?”

“Miserable mostly. Anyway, you good?”

He didn’t answer either question, and my hand tightens around the phone hard enough that my knuckles go pale, my nails pressing small crescents into my own palm without me deciding to make a fist at all.

I glance at Artem across the desk, at the way he’s watching me without pretending not to, and force my voice steady. “I’m okay.” The lie comes out fast, automatic. “I just, I hadn’t heard from you in a while, and I got a little worried, so I wanted to hear your voice.”

“Aw, I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” The crowd noise swells again on his end, and I press the phone harder against my ear like that’ll pull more of his attention through it. “This is a huge play, hold on.”

My eyes sting without warning. I blink hard, twice, willing it back. “Caleb, I really needed to talk to you, can you just…”

“Hey, can I call you back? This game’s insane right now.”

My whole body goes still, phone hot against my palm, waiting for him to walk it back, to catch the crack in my voice and ask what’s actually wrong. He doesn’t. The crowd roars again on his end, and I hear him laugh at something that has nothing to do with me.

“Yeah. Sure.” My voice sounds far away even to me, the automatic yes I’ve been handing him my whole life.

“Love you, talk soon.”

The line goes dead before I can say it back; the silence after it is somehow louder than anything the call itself had in it, ringing in my ears the way a slammed door might.

I sit there holding the phone against my ear for a few extra seconds, listening to nothing, waiting for the call to somehow pick itself back up. It doesn’t. My throat closes so tight I have to consciously remember how to swallow. My hands suddenly go cold, fingers stiff around the phone.

I lower myself into the chair across from Artem’s desk without really deciding to sit, phone still gripped in both hands now like it might do something different if I hold it long enough. My leg won’t stop bouncing. My jaw is clenched so tight it’s starting to ache. Any second now, I tell myself. He’ll call back. He always does, eventually.

I run through everything I could have said differently, faster, sharper, something that would have made him actually stop and listen instead of drifting back to a game.

I could have said it’s an emergency. I could have said I’m scared. I didn’t say any of that, because some old habit in me still flinches away from sounding needy in front of him, even now, even after everything, even after two weeks of teaching myself exactly how much fear I could carry alone without it showing.

Ten minutes pass. My leg starts bouncing under me, a habit I haven’t had since exams in high school. I catch myself refreshing the call log even though I know exactly what it says, my thumb moving before the rest of me agrees to it. Twenty minutes. I check the screen so many times my thumb goes numb from unlocking it, the same black nothing every single time.

My eyes fill up fast, no warning this time, no chance to blink it back. My breath catches hard in my chest, one broken inhale that turns into two, and my shoulders start shaking before I can stop them.

I press my hand flat against my mouth to try to hold the sound in, but it comes anyway, a strangled, ugly noise I don’t recognize as mine. My whole face feels like it’s collapsing in on itself, heat rushing up my neck, and I can’t get a single full breath in without it catching halfway, my ribs aching with the effort of trying.

“He’s not calling back,” I say, barely audible, my voice breaking apart on every word.

Artem doesn’t say anything. When I finally look up, his jaw is tight, eyes fixed on me with none of his usual stillness in them, and for a second I watch him actually search for something to say and come up with nothing. It’s strange, watching a man who’s never once hesitated on anything else in this house suddenly not know what to say.

He comes around the desk slowly and crouches down in front of my chair instead of hovering over it. “Harper.” His voice is quieter than I’ve ever heard it.

I shake my head, unable to get anything out, tears sliding hot down my face faster than I can wipe them.

He hesitates, his hand lifting halfway toward me and stopping. His eyes flick to my face, to the phone still gripped white-knuckled in my lap.

Then he pulls me into him, stiff, one arm wrapping around my shoulders too tight at first, then loosening when I don’t pull away. His other hand hovers near my back before landing there.

I press my face into his shoulder and let go completely, my whole body shaking with it now, fingers curling into the front of his shirt because I need something to hold onto that won’t disappear on me too.

He doesn’t pat my back or murmur anything soothing. He holds still, arm tightening in small increments as though he’s testing how much pressure actually helps, his own breathing gone careful and measured against the top of my head. I can feel him swallow hard.

I don’t know how long I cry like that. Long enough that my throat goes raw, long enough that his shirt is damp under my cheek, long enough that when I finally pull back, my eyes are swollen and my whole face feels hot and tight, my breath still coming in uneven little hitches even after the worst of it passes, the kind that take a full minute more, maybe two, to fully settle.

That’s when I see her. Nadia, just past the doorway, one hand still on the frame as though she’d been about to step through it before she stopped. Her eyes are locked on Artem’s arm still around me, on his hand still flat against my back, and her mouth presses into a thin line before she turns and walks off without a word, her footsteps fading fast down the hall like she can’t get away from what she just saw quickly enough.

I don’t have the energy to think about what her face just did. My eyes are too swollen to focus on much past the doorway anyway, and I wipe them with the back of my wrist instead, sniffing hard, trying to get my breathing back to something normal. Artem’s arm stays exactly where it is, his thumb pressing once against my shoulder blade like he’s checking I’m still there, still breathing, still in one piece after all of it.

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