Page 205

The room settles into a brief pause while Maggie takes us in. Her gaze moves from Briggs to Torin and finally lands on me. "You're Ben's friends."

The certainty in her tone catches me off guard.

I nod. "Yeah. Laurel’s too."

Her brow furrows slightly before recognition brightens her expression. "I remember you."

That surprises me enough that I actually sit back in my chair. "You do?"

A laugh escapes her. It's the first genuine one I've heard from her. "You're hard to forget. Tall, serious, always carrying a notebook around like you were collecting evidence for a future trial."

Across the room, Briggs coughs suspiciously into his fist.

Torin doesn't bother hiding his grin.

"I wasn't that bad," Ashly protests mildly.

"You absolutely were," Torin says. "Ben spent two years trying to convince everyone you were born forty years old."

"Forty-seven," Briggs corrects. "Ben always said forty-seven."

I give both of them a look.

Neither appears concerned.

Maggie's smile widens. "Laurel told me you still carry one."

"I do."

"Then Ben would've felt very vindicated."

I can see him clearly, stretched across a couch with his feet hanging off the armrest, stealing my notebooks whenever I looked away. Half the pages would come back covered in terrible cartoons and increasingly creative insults about my future accounting career. He'd act offended when I complained, as if I should've been grateful for the artistic improvement.

The ache never really leaves. It just finds different places to settle.

Maggie studies me for a few seconds and seems to understand exactly where my thoughts have gone. "He loved you guys."

Briggs turns toward the window. Torin looks down at his sketchbook and traces his thumb along the edge of the cover. I find myself staring at the papers scattered across the table, because meeting anyone's eyes feels harder than it should.

"We loved him too."

Maggie nods, and I get the feeling she understands every part of that sentence, including the pieces I didn't say.

Eventually Laurel picks up the conversation and fills in the gaps. She chooses her details carefully, giving us enough to understand what Maggie has endured without forcing her to relive every awful part of it. She explains the shelters, the attempts to leave, the fear that followed Maggie from place to place, and the ways Tom managed to pull her back whenever she started building a path out.

The more I hear, the less I like where my thoughts are going.

By the end, Briggs has the expression of a man conducting a detailed internal debate about assault laws.

Torin has abandoned all pretense of sketching and looks ready to volunteer as an accomplice.

As for me, I'm mentally sorting through restraining orders, criminal charges, and every legal avenue available. Which is probably the healthiest reaction in the room.

The fact that I'm only winning by a narrow margin feels deeply concerning.

Maggie's hands twist together in her lap until her knuckles pale. "I can't go back."

Nobody rushes to speak.