Chapter 89 How

Chapter 89 How
CHAPTER SIXTEEN — THE ROOF

Caleb scores twice against Riverside. Clean shots, no wasted motion, the kind scouts write down and circle twice.

After, he finds me outside the equipment room, still in his gear, sweat drying on his neck.

He says it like a confession, flat, no performance behind it. "I stopped trying not to think about you. Let myself think about you between shifts instead. Game got easier."

"That's either the nicest thing you've said to me, or the weirdest."

"Can't it be both?"

He takes my hand before I can answer and leads me up a back stairwell I didn't know existed, lock broken, door swinging loose at the top. The roof is freezing. Gravel under my shoes. The whole city laid out below us, ordinary and small from up here.

"What are you afraid of?" he asks. "Not the obvious stuff. The thing underneath it."

I think about lying. I don't.

"Getting used to having someone. Getting used to you showing up, and then it disappearing."

He turns to face me. "I'm afraid of losing you. That's it. That's my whole answer."

"That's a good answer."

"It's the only honest one I've got tonight."

I take his hand. "Same fear, for the record. I just didn't want to say it first."

"We could just agree to be scared of it together."

"That's not exactly comforting."

"Wasn't trying for comforting. Just honest."

We sit down on the gravel, cold seeping straight through my jeans. Neither of us moves to fix it.

"How'd you find this place?"

He's not looking at me, just out at the skyline. "Freshman year. Used to come up here when things at home got loud. Never brought anyone before."

"Why me?"

"Because you're the only person who's ever made silence feel like something other than a warning. Most people fill it because they're scared of what happens if they don't."

"I've had a lot of practice with quiet."

His thumb moves over my knuckles, same as the coat check. "I noticed. I don't want to go back to before this. Before you."

"Me neither."

"Terrifying, admitting that."

I lean my head against his shoulder because it's cold and because I want to, both true at once. "Extremely. We should go back down before someone notices we're gone."

"Probably." Neither of us moves.

"Can I ask you something else?"

"Sure."

"When the sixty days are up. What happens to us?"

I look out at the skyline instead of at him. Easier that way.

"I don't want an expiration date on this anymore."

He turns my hand over, traces the calluses on my palm, the ones three jobs left behind. "Neither do I. None of this was supposed to be real. It's the realest thing I've had in years."

"Same."

"So what do we do? When the contract ends?"

The words come out easier than I expect. "We tear it up. Figure out whatever this actually is without thirty thousand dollars deciding the terms."

He laughs, quiet, breath fogging. "Terrifying. Also the first decision I've made in years that has nothing to do with my father."

"Terrifying's not always bad."

He shifts closer, gravel crunching under him. "No. Sometimes it's just the start of something worth being scared of."

We stay up there until the cold finally wins, hands linked the whole way down, neither of us in a hurry to let go.

At the bottom of the stairwell, he stops me before we reach the door.

"One more thing."

"What?"

"Thank you. For not letting me stay the version of myself my dad wanted. For calling me out that first day in the equipment room, and every day since."

"You did that part yourself."

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, testing whether I'll pull away. I don't. "I had help. Best help I've ever had."

"Careful. My head's not that big yet, but keep talking like that and it will be."

"Good. Want it that big."

I laugh, surprised at the sound of it, and he laughs too, and for a second the parking lot and the scouts and Richard Kessler's whole tower downtown feel like someone else's problem entirely.

I tell him. "We should go in. Before someone sends a search party."

He laces his fingers through mine one more time before pushing the door open. "Let them search. Some things are worth being late for."

I don't argue. I follow him back into the noise, hand still warm in his, everything we just said tucked away somewhere I know I won't forget.

Chloe corners me at my locker before I even reach first class Monday morning.

"You look different. Good different."

"I feel different."

"Something happened this weekend. Spill."

"There's a roof. He used to go up there alone."

"And?"

"And we talked about what happens after the contract ends."

"And?"

"We're tearing it up. No expiration date."

Chloe's whole face lights up like I just handed her a gift. "Mia. That's huge."

"I know."

"How do you feel about it?"

I think about the gravel, the cold, his thumb tracing slow circles over my knuckles like he had all the time in the world to memorize them.

"Terrified. In the good way, for once."

"The good way is new for you."

I close my locker, smiling despite myself. "It is. I think I could get used to it."

She hooks her arm through mine, and we walk to first period together, the whole building buzzing around us, none of it loud enough to touch the quiet certainty I've carried since that roof.

My mom is still up when I get home, tea gone cold on the side table, same as always lately.

"You're glowing. What happened?"

"Nothing happened."

"Mia."

"Fine. Something happened."

She sets her mug down, giving me her full attention, which at this point in her treatment costs her more energy than most people realize. "I knew it. Tell me."

"He took me up to a roof. We talked about after. After the contract."

"And?"

"And there's not going to be an after. Not the kind with an ending, anyway."

Her eyes stay on me a long moment, the same look she's given me my whole life, the one that misses nothing.

"You love him."

It's not a question, so I don't treat it like one.

"Yeah. I do."

She reaches for my hand. "Good. I like watching you be happy, Mia. You've spent so many years taking care of everyone else. It's nice to see you let someone take care of you back, for once."

"I can still take care of myself."

She squeezes my hand once. "I know. That doesn't mean you have to, every single time. Go to bed. You look tired in the good way."

I head upstairs, my mom's words following me the whole way up.

Danny's door is cracked open when I pass, controller still glowing on his bed even though he's asleep sitting up against the headboard. I turn off his light and pull the blanket over him the way I used to when he was smaller, before any of this started, before hospital folders and contracts and rooftops changed the shape of what our family looked like day to day.

In my own room, I lie awake a while, phone in hand, one more text from Caleb waiting.

Get home okay?

Yeah. Told my mom about the roof.

What'd she say?

That she likes watching me be happy. That she knew before I said anything.

Moms usually do.

Goodnight, Caleb.

Goodnight, Mia. Same fear, remember. Together.