Page 125 of Hide From Me

I grin and my lips part but Sam already knows what's coming so he cuts me off

“Fucking try it,”

“Oh, come on!” I groan. Laura disappeared at some point, thankfully so. Eventually, I’ll be able to let it all go, but just not right now.

“I swear if you’re better by then and you do it, I’ll make sure you're back in here,” Sam grumbles, unwrapping a sandwich, but there’s a ghost of a smirk at the corner of his mouth.

I let out a breath—something jagged that tries to be a laugh but doesn’t quite make it. Still, it’s something and for now, that’s enough because the war isn’t over. My body’s still broken. My heart’s still cracked wide open, but I’m alive.

She came and I’ve still got people in my corner—fucked-up, loud, and intrusive as they are.

So let the healing and starting over begin.

Twenty-Nine

Raylen

03-07-2026

Fae's Diner

The diner is slow this morning. It’s quiet in a way that should feel peaceful, but instead, it feels haunted—like even the ghosts are tired of watching me pretend to be okay. The early rush has come and gone. Now, there’s just the hum of the fridge, the soft clink of coffee cups, and Jack humming some off-key classic rock song that’s older than both of us combined.

I’ve wiped the same six feet of counter three times in ten minutes—not because it’s dirty, or because I have this deep-seated need to, when the panic is rising–but because the second I stop moving, I start thinking. And that’s more dangerous than any silence.

It’s been a month since he collapsed—bleeding, breathless, rambling about fathers, monsters, and choices as if the world were ending. Maybe it was. Maybe it still is. I haven’t decided yet.

All I know is that with each passing day, something inside me frays a little more. The pieces of my sanity slip away like threads unraveling from a sweater that was never stitched quite right to begin with.

Jack’s fingers slide an order slip across the counter without looking at me.

“Table four,” he says, as expected, then adds with a teasing grin, “Chocolate chip pancakes.”

I don’t reply. I don’t need to. We both know who it’s for.

Moe has been doing this every morning for the past week, ever since he got cleared to leave the med bay bed—same time, same booth, same order, and the same goddamn heartbreak.

He limps in like a slow-motion apology, dressed in black sweats and that worn hoodie I remember falling asleep against once. The first time, I didn’t even speak to him. I just set the plate down, like I was feeding a ghost, and walked away.

The second time he smiled—softly, cautiously—and said, “Hi. I’m Moe.” It felt as if he didn’t realize he had disrupted my life just by existing. It was as if he hadn’t cut me open with every secret he never trusted me enough to share. That one simple sentence pulled me under and left me drowning all over again.

Now it has become a routine, a silent performance we both agreed to without ever articulating the terms. He shows up, and I pretend not to care. Yet my heart stumbles—violently and traitorously—every time he slips through that door.

I pick up the plate from the kitchen window. It’s warm in my hands—too warm, as if it knows how much I’m about to regret this. I walk toward the booth slowly, watching him already seated there, the sling tight around his shoulder, and the knee brace peeking out from beneath his sweats. He sits upright despite the obvious discomfort, his hands folded neatly on the table like a student waiting to be called on.

His hoodie sleeves are pushed up to his elbows, revealing bruised forearms and the faint trace of an IV scar just above his wrist. He looks at me as if this is all perfectly normal, as though we aren’t a wreckage pretending to be whole.

I set the plate down a bit harder than necessary, causing syrup to slosh over the rim.

“You know,” I mutter, trying to conceal the edge in my voice, “at some point, you’re going to have to try something else on the menu.”

He looks up at me with that irritating, sunshine grin—the one that always slips past my defenses, no matter how much armor I put on. “Hi. I’m Moe.”

I cross my arms. “You’ve said that every day for the past seven days.”

“Still true,” he replies easily, his eyes never leaving mine. “Still me.”

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? It’sstill him.