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It’s too quiet. “Hello?” I call into the vacant space, and my voice bounces back. “Hello?” I repeat, already knowing silence will be my response.

They wouldn’t, would they? Families were off-limits. A code brokered between them months ago. An honest handshake agreement between two dishonest criminals. My tiptoes turn into thuds as I search the rooms, open closets, and look under beds. Days ago, I would’ve welcomed the calm. But now… now things are different. Too much is at stake.

Mack wrote. Pages and pages developed, feeding off her belly’s sickness.

Who thinks of impending loss to this nauseating degree? Apparently, me. We’ve all read the articles on anxiety and fear, worrying about our loved ones, but I’d been exempt. Until now. Sure, I take precautions. But my precautions are ironclad. I think. Ihope.

I should celebrate my success from earlier tonight, but my mind races, flashes to an impending void, and my heart squeezes so hard in my chest that I grip the chair in front of me to keep from passing out.

Her fingers cramped. Her parents arrived home, and she requested silence. She continued.

They can’t take this away from me. For the first time in my life, I feel it. It’s so close, a ghost whisper of a touch away. I can capture it. I know I can. My scalp throbs so hard, so heavy, but I push through. It’s right there. All I need to do is stretch… reach… Once my fingertips make contact, I’ll latch on forever.

Her phone rang, and her breath hitched at Charlie’s name.

“Hey!”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Charlie’s hoarse, rushed voice boomed through the phone. “I’m making up all sorts of stories in my head, why something is one way, and maybe it should be another. And I’m scared, Mack. I’m so scared… and I know maybe it’s not a big deal to you, or maybe it is, or maybe I don’t know anything, but it’s a big deal to me, and…”

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” Mack sat up and flung her laptop to the side. She hated hearing Charlie like this, but relief spread that she called. “I’m here. You want to talk about it?”

“When you didn’t text or sounded all disinterested in your messages, I got all weird, and I said I would never get weird again, and I did it after one date.” Charlie sniffed. “One. Date.My healing, therapy, growing, all destroyed in a snap.”

Oh no.Mack didn’t respond to anyone, ever, in her zone. But she actually sent a few messages to Charlie. She remembered tearing her eyes away from the manuscript to jot a quick note. To Mack, it was huge. But Charlie clearly needed more.

“I think you’re too hard on yourself. Growing and healing don’t mean you’re not allowed to feel anything,” Mack said. “I’m sorry that not texting or calling immediately caused that anxiety. Not answering you has nothing to do with you and everything about me being trapped in my zone.”

“Huh?”

Mack pulled her knees up to her chest and placed the phone on speaker. “It’s like if I called you during your morning rush. You’d probably ignore me.”

A cry-giggle sounded. “Oh… God, that totally makes sense. And then my dad came here, and things feel so different, and maybe there’s light?—”

“Your dad came to see you?”

“Yep, and it’s like, for once, it’s all good. I mean, it’s not, but the weight lifted, but then it amplified the weight with you, and it’s hard, you know? It’s all really new and scary.”

“It’s scary for me, too.”

Several seconds of silence followed. The sound of a sniffle and blowing nose came through the receiver. “It is?”

“Of course it is. I don’t even know what to do with myself.” Mack twirled her index ring. “I have feelings I’ve never had, and my body doesn’t know how to decode them. Is it anxiety? Is it happiness? Is it?—”

She stopped herself. Was it love?

“I just… I need to know how you feel.” The vulnerability in Charlie’s voice burrowed into Mack.

“I’m all in.” Mack’s unprotected heart kicked frantically against her chest. Excruciating, slow, silent seconds passed.

“Want to come over?”

The drive to Charlie’s took a million years. Mack tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel. She turned the music up and back down again. She sped through yellow lights. And when she pulled up, she withheld from sprinting up the stairs.

Charlie ripped the door before Mack even knocked. Mack was prepared to talk things out, sit there all night if they had to, make sure they both felt secure and heard. Whatever it took, Mack was committed.

But Charlie gripped her from behind her neck and pushed her lips onto Mack’s before Mack could squeak out a word. Charlie kicked the door shut behind her and latched the lock. The wall pressed into Mack’s back when Charlie drove her against it as her tongue pushed into Mack’s mouth.

Charlie stood back for a second, wide-eyed and flushed. “Is this okay?”