Page 65 of Omega's Formula

“It feels like foolishness.” I don’t look her in the eye. I’ve never been someone who is open with their feelings, but even I can’t hold this dam back and Anna is the one person who will always be there for me.

“Yeah, well, trust usually does when it gets broken.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand, brief and warm. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to trust someone. It’s natural.”

I want to argue with her, to list all the ways I should have known better, should have seen through the act. But her hand is warm on mine and I’m exhausted.

“Dad always said that successful people don’t let feelings cloud their judgment,” I hear myself say. “And he was so right. My judgment went right out of the window with Nolan. I fucked up. I was going to stay with him.”

“Dad was wrong about a lot of things.” Anna’s voice carries an edge now. “You know that. He spent his whole life pushing people away in the name of strength, and what did it get him? A heart attack at sixty and a lot of people who feared him and only a few who loved him.”

“Anna—”

“You’re just like him sometimes. You know that? All this control, all this distance.” She holds my gaze. “Ignoring your emotions isn’t strength, Erik. Managing them, sure, but you’re not doing that. You’re locking them away until they can’t help but come out and overwhelm you.”

I laugh because it’s either that or cry, then I grin at her. “You’re notcompletelywrong.”

She opens her eyes in mock surprise. “Oh my god, the great Erik Nilsson admitting I’m right and he’s wrong?”

“I didn’t say I was wrong. Only that youmightbe right. Come now, Anna. Baby steps. One day I’ll be wrong and I’ll even admit it. Maybe not today.”

She grins back and squeezes my hand. “Actually, you know what? Let’s me and you go do something. Right now. Go out and do something fun.”

“I have work.”

“Your work will survive an afternoon without you. When’s the last time you took any time off that wasn’t forced?”

I don’t have an answer for that.

“Come on.” She stands, pulling at my arm. “We’re going out. Mini-golf, maybe. Or a movie. Something mindless and fun. You need a distraction.”

“Anna, I really don’t think—”

“Remember when we were kids? We used to go to the movies every weekend. You’d let me order whatever gross slushy combination I wanted, and I’d let you get the popcorn with too much butter.”

I do remember. Such a simple thing but it always felt like an enormous treat.

“One afternoon,” Anna says. “Just one. Consider it preventative maintenance. Keep you from completely falling apart before the week is out.”

I look at her. “Fine,” I say. “But I’m choosing the movie.”

Her grin is triumphant. “Deal. But we’re definitely getting the gross candy.”

The theater is mostly empty for a Tuesday afternoon showing of some comedy I’ve never heard of. Anna buys an obscene amount of snacks and insists on sitting in the exact center of the middle row, claiming it provides “optimal viewing experience.”

For the first twenty minutes, I can’t focus. My mind keeps circling back to Nolan.

On screen, something ridiculous happens. A character falls into a fountain while trying to impress their love interest. Anna laughs, that full-body laugh she’s had since childhood, and something in my chest loosens fractionally.

I let myself sink into the seat. The movie is stupid in the best way—low stakes, absurd situations, nothing that requires thought or emotional investment. Just color and motion and jokes that are predictable but still somehow land.

Halfway through, I realize I’m actually watching. Not just staring at the screen while my thoughts spiral, but genuinely following the plot, such as it is.

Near the end, during a scene so melodramatic it circles back to sincere, I find myself laughing. Actually laughing, the sound startling in my own ears.

Anna elbows me gently. “There he is.”

The movie ends. Credits roll. We sit in the darkness while the theater empties around us, neither of us moving to leave.

“Better?” she asks.