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He crouches next to her chair. “Hey. You okay?”

She nods stiffly.

He doesn’t push, but the furrow in his brow and the quick glance he throws my way tells me he’s just as worried—and confused—as I am. I shrug in response to his unasked question.

His expression is tight as he steps back, grabs a pan from the rack, and starts pulling out ingredients like he’s trying to fill the room with noise.

A few minutes later, she pushes her untouched mug forward, mumbles something about laundry, and disappears down the hall.

Finn stares at the spot where she was.

“She’s spiraling again,” he says without looking at me.

I look down the hall after her as I shift, leaning back into the counter. “What happened?”

He shakes his head, jaw clenching for a second before he answers. “I don’t know.”

That’s worse than if he did. Finn usually knows what’s going on with her. But not today, apparently.

“She barely looked at me,” he adds.

Finn begins cracking eggs into the pan with more force than usual.

“We talked yesterday,” he says after a beat. “Maybe I said the wrong thing.”

“Or maybe she heard something you didn’t actually say.”

It’s too easy to imagine what might’ve happened. She’s still adjusting to being here. Maybe the freedom tasted too sweet too fast. Maybe she’s crashing from it now.

Or maybe it’s something else entirely. There was something in her eyes this morning. A dull kind of panic she was trying to smother.

“She talked about you,” Finn says.

My eyes flick toward him. “What does that mean?”

“She trusts you in a way she doesn’t trust me. It’s…what I have with her is different,” Finn responds, shrugging his shoulders.

I turn that over in my mind, try to figure out what it means. She’s still young, still rebuilding. She’s figuring out what she needs. And it sure as hell isn’t someone like me.

She deserves soft and steady and safe. Finn is all of those things.

I’m not.

But I can’t stop the feeling.

“She’s not mine,” I say firmly.

Finn’s quiet a moment. Then, without turning, he mutters, “Doesn’t mean you don’t want her to be.”

“I don’t—that’s?—”

“Look, all I’m saying is you might be the only one she lets in this time. Just…try.”

I want to. I do. But how am I going to get through to her?

When I finally find her where she can’t easily escape me, it’s long past sunset. The porch light hasn’t been turned on, but there’s enough glow from the moon to see her outline at the edge of the steps.

She’s sitting with her legs pulled in tight, shoulders curled forward, still wrapped in one of my old sweatshirts. The thing’s oversized enough that she’s tucked her legs into it, hiding everything but her bare toes. Her hair’s a little wild, and her hands are buried in the sleeves.