Chapter 44
Chapter 44
I returned to campus on a Tuesday, wearing my favorite sweater and boots that made my footsteps sound more certain than they felt. The sun was barely up, the sky a wash of pale grey with just the thinnest edge of gold pushing in from the east. I parked in the upper lot, shoulders squared, eyes forward. I didn’t check the rearview mirror. I didn’t look for shadows. I walked in alone. No Dom trailing behind. No Jackson waiting in the car. Just me—and the decision I’d made to show up anyway. The hallway buzzed with a low current of voices, backpacks slung over shoulders, students bent over phones or coffee cups. A few looked up when I passed. Some glanced away quickly, like looking too long might make the rumors real. But one girl—someone from my Ethics seminar—gave me a small, quiet nod. I nodded back. It was enough.
Inside the classroom, I chose a seat in the middle row, not in the back, not by the door, right where I wanted to be. I set down my notebook and clicked my pen once, then again, grounding myself in the rhythm of ordinary things. When the professor began the lecture, I took notes like I used to, not just to keep up, but because the act of writing made me feel like myself.
After class, I waited until the room cleared, then approached Dr. Moreno’s desk. She looked up before I could speak, her expression soft but steady.
“I wanted to say thank you,” I said. “For the way you... Didn’t treat me differently. Even when you could have.”
Her lips curved gently. “It’s not my job to decide who you are, Olivia. It’s my job to teach, and to listen when someone’s voice deserves the space.”
I nodded, a knot loosening in my chest. “I’m trying to rebuild something. I don’t even know what to call it yet.”
She tilted her head. “Call it a beginning. That’s always a good place to start.”
I hesitated. “Some days I still feel afraid.”
She didn’t flinch. “Fear isn’t weakness. It’s proof you still care about what happens next.”
That stayed with me the whole walk to my car.
When I got home, the porch smelled like coffee and pine. The motion sensors clicked softly as I approached, a sound that no longer startled me. It just meant I was seen. And this time, that didn’t feel like a threat. Inside, the house was warm with quiet energy. Jackson was in the kitchen, sleeves pushed to his elbows, stirring something that smelled like rosemary and garlic. The lamp over the sink was on, casting a pool of golden light across the counter. It looked like the kind of evening people came home to, the kind I never used to think belonged to me.
He glanced up when I closed the door behind me. “You made it through.”
I stepped out of my shoes, toeing them neatly beside the door. “Yeah,” I said. “And I didn’t flinch once.”
He grinned and reached behind him. “Then I think this belongs to you.”
He handed me a small terracotta pot, cradled gently in his palm. Inside was a tiny, wild-looking plant with dark green leaves and a tag tied to the stem with twine. I turned it in my hand and read the words written in Jackson’s careful handwriting:
“For roots, not walls.”
The lump in my throat came quick and quiet, blooming before I could stop it. I looked up at him and shook my head, laughing softly. “That’s unfair.”
He shrugged. “It’s true.”
We made dinner side by side: chopped vegetables, stirred pasta, and burned the garlic toast. We didn’t talk much, but we didn’t have to. The silences between us had long since become safe. After we ate, I placed the plant on the windowsill in the living room, the same window through which the photo had been taken. I didn’t do it to tempt fate. I did it because I’d spent enough time giving him the view. Now it was mine.
Later, Dom called from the back office, voice low and clipped. Jackson and I met him in the hallway where he held up the security tablet like it had grown teeth.
“There,” he said, pointing to a still image frozen in time.
It was night footage, grainy, green-lit, and hard to read, but just past the motion boundary at the far tree line, a car sat idling, with no visible plate. No driver caught on camera. Just the faint halo of headlights angled toward the property and the kind of stillness that wasn’t innocent.
“He didn’t step onto the land this time,” Dom said. “But he was close. Watching. Just like before.”
Jackson’s hand flexed at his side. Mine stayed steady. I walked to the window, looked out at the dark yard, and slowly drew the curtain shut. I didn’t rush. I didn’t shake. I closed the curtain, not with fear, but with a promise. Whatever came through the dark next, I’d meet it with both feet planted and the door locked behind me.